An insight on Trump’s tariffs and what they are affecting
On Feb. 6 2025, President Donald Trump agreed to pause the 25% tariffs on imports from both Mexico and Canada until Mar 4, but China’s tariffs are still going into effect on February 10th. Trump has decided on putting these tariffs into effect for three main reasons: to bring balance to trading, raise revenue and to bring rival countries to the negotiating table. However through multiple analyses from the Tax Foundation, the Tax Policy Center and the Peterson Institute for International Economics they concluded that these tariffs could have the ability to lower and hurt growth as well as push prices up. But President Trump insists that these tariffs are a necessary tool to push down inflation.
John Sheidle ‘27 said, “I think that they are bad because all my cheap stuff on Temu I really like aren’t gonna be available and they’re going to be more expensive now. And I like my cheap stuff.”
On top of the 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada imports there will also be another 10% tariff on Canada’s oil, natural gas and electricity. The US imported $97 billion worth of oil and gas from Canada last year. Trump has also said that he would impose tariffs on Canada’s and France’s goods over their digital services taxes this because The White House fact sheet said “only America should be allowed to tax American firms,” they also said that Canada and France had been using their digital services taxes to collect $500 million per year from U.S companies. Also in response to Trump’s tariffs Shien and Temu have had to raise prices as well as remove products on both websites, shipping speeds will slow down as well.
Jonathan Kelley, ‘26 said, “I think they are raising prices for American consumers for pretty much no reason.”
These negotiations have led to a 15% global corporate tax meant to be an alternative to digital taxes but these have mostly been put on hold with no agreement yet. Most of the products being targeted are fruits and vegetables, meat, gas, automobiles, electronics, toys, clothing, lumber beer and spirits. Canada and Mexico give a high majority of important food categories like for instance Mexico is the biggest supplier of fruits and vegetables while Canada is the largest supplier of grain, livestock and meats and poultry. Last year America imported $46 billion agricultural products from Mexico. Around 99% of all shoes in the U.S. are imported from elsewhere and around 56% of said shoes are imported from China. The U.S is also very reliant on China for sporting equipment and toys as we get 75% of toys and sports equipment from China.
