The United States has bought over $439 billion worth of goods from China in 2024, and more than three times the $143.5 it sold in return. So, that $295 billion gap, known as the trade deficit is something that Donald Trump was to make much smaller through tariffs put in place against China.
To shrink this gap, Trump raised tariffs on China to a huge increase of 145 percent. This means Chinese goods sold to America are taxed 2.45 times more than their original price. The tit-for-tat escalation of tariffs between the world’s biggest trading powers has led to uncertainty on what it means for the cost and production of everyday items such as cellphones, and other types of popular clothing brands that are very well known in the United states.
On February 1, President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing a 10 percent tariff on China and a 25 percent tax on Canadian and Mexican imports. Although many of the items we use for everyday items like cell phones, which were originally one of the first items from China to have a tax on them, Trump decided on April 11, “ smartphones, laptops, and a host of other tech components would be spared from so-called “reciprocal tariffs”.” The US Customs and Border Protection Agency listed 20 product categories, including all computers, laptops, disc drives, and automatic data processing equipment; it also included other important devices such as memory cards for are devices as part of the tariffs.
Last Sunday, Trump decided to change his mind again about the taxes on electronics, which was only three days after he “changed his mind” for the second time. He also advanced plans to introduce tariffs on semiconductors and pharmaceutical products. So what do you think about all these new tariffs? Do you think they could be good for the United States or bad?
