Trump tried to warn us he told us time and time again about his tariff plans and now he's come out of the gates swinging it's exactly what he promised and yet the markets are in shock and here we all are nursing a sore p&l huge new taxes on America's imports from China Canada Mexico and Europe threaten to upend the US economy and start a global trade War so today we find out how Trump's tariffs are changing the world why and what his end game might look like plus what it all means for crypto my name is Guy stay tuned on the campaign Trail last year Donald Trump told the world that tariffs would play a major role in his second Administration according to Trump the US had been taken advantage of by its trading partners and tariffs were going to bring them to justice tariffs would mean foreign exporters paying the US a tax for the priv pre of accessing its Market this tax would be huge and this would make the US quote rich as hell foreign countries would pay the us so much money that the government could even scrap federal income tax which currently accounts for the majority of its Revenue moreover tariffs would make American Goods cheaper than their foreign competitors prompting Americans to buy more americanmade products this would mean more growth more jobs higher profits higher Shar sh prices and just a whole lot of winning for the American economy at the same time tariffs would also encourage foreign exporters to relocate their production to the US to avoid paying tariffs they would invest in new US infrastructure creating new jobs for American workers but that's not all tariffs would also be the secret weapon of US foreign policy naturally America's trading partners would rather not be subject to huge import taxes the threat alone would have them lining up outside of the White House to offer president Trump whatever he wants in exchange for tariff relief so then what's not to like well as always the naysayers had an absolute Field Day nitpicking this one economists journalists tax experts American businesses foreign governments and haters of all Stripes pointed out that tariffs are taxes paid to the government by American importers and consumers of foreign Goods not the foreign exporters they pointed to America's previous brush with Trump tariffs back in 2018 to 2019 back then us companies dependent on Chinese Imports had to pay more for raw materials machinery and consumer products this disrupted Supply chains and increased production costs leading to job cuts and reduced business investment in other words Trump's tariffs damaged the economy meanwhile retaliatory tariffs from America's trading partners hit us agriculture hard leading the Trump Administration to hand out 61 billion dollar worth of subsidies to Farmers between 2018 and 2020 revenue generated by Trump's tariffs was largely redirected to fund the bailouts for us Agriculture and this poured cold water on the theory that tariffs would be a net positive for federal revenue if there was a silver lining it was that inflation didn't rise as much as anticipated the US dollar was strong helping to offset some of the price increases on Foreign imports meanwhile the Federal Reserve responded to tariff related uncertainty by cutting interest rates which also helped stabilize inflation however it's not clear that Trump's new tariffs could avoid spiking inflation again not least because they are far more extensive this time around then again the scale of Trump's new tariffs LED some to believe that they weren't serious proposals after all Americans Lifestyles depend on Goods imported from all over the world and to tax them at say 25% would severely disrupt the US economy any benefits to specific us Industries protected by tariffs would be dwarfed by the broader economic slowdown they would cause surely Trump's tough talk was just intended to scare America's trading partners into new trade negotiations right right well after much will he or won't he president Trump Came Out Swinging like his life depended on it just days after returning to the Oval Office on the 1st of February he signed an executive order introducing new taxes on imports from China Canada and Mexico that would come into effect on the 4th of February all imports from China would be subject to a 10% tariff which Trump described as his quote opening Salvo a funny choice of words that almost sounds intended to provoke a trade War surely not as it happened China got off lightly though the president saved his worse for us allies Canada and Mexico hitting imports from both countries with a huge tax of 25% an exception was made for energy imported from Canada which would be subject to a lower tax of 10% the White House also released a fact sheet laying out the reasoning behind the new tariffs interestingly key words normally associated with tariffs like industry and jobs were not mentioned at all in this document instead the tariffs are Trump's response to quote the extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs including deadly fenel entering the United States now naturally Canada Mexico and China were not happy about this China vowed to take corresponding counter measures including 10 to 15% tariffs on specific American Goods export controls on critical minerals blacklisting of individual us companies and an antitrust probe into Google meanwhile Canada and Mexico also protested albeit while seeking to negotiate their way out of the tariffs Mexico's president Claudia Shin bam said quote if the US wanted to address the fenol crisis they could combat the sale of Narcotics on the streets of their major cities which they do not do Shin bam urged president Trump to take seriously the crisis of gun trafficking from the US into Mexico that sustains the flow of Narcotics in the other direction up to 750,000 us-made Firearms illegally enter Mexico from the United States each year with some American Gun makers appearing to Market two Mexican drug cartels without facing any consequences Canada meanwhile was exasperated to be given the same treatment as Mexico the day after his inauguration President Trump asserted quote the fentol coming through Canada is massive the fentol coming through Mexico is massive however this is at odds with US Government data Federal statistics show US border authorities seized 21,889 of fenyl in the 2024 fiscal year of that amount £43 or about 0. 2% were seized at the Canadian border compared with 21,1 £ 148 at the Mexican border about 96. 6% meanwhile the US drug enforcement administration's 2024 National Drg threat assessment report mentioned Mexico 86 times compared to zero mentions of Canada migration is a similar story at the same event after his inauguration President Trump said quote they've allowed both of them Canada very much so they've allowed millions and millions of people to come into our country country that shouldn't be here they could have stopped them and they didn't however Canada accounts for a very small percentage of US border patrol encounters with migrants at places other than legal ports of entry in the 2024 fiscal year US border patrol recorded 1.
6 million such Encounters of which just 23721 or about 1. 5% were at the northern border the Canadian government was especially peeved because the previous month it had announced a $1.
