National

For the past several months, President Donald Trump has been waging a costly trade war with China, which has had no shortage of ill effects on US farmers.

The president decided to use millions of American taxpayer dollars to bail them out — but that money may also end up helping Chinese-owned and foreign-owned agriculture companies operating in the US.

The US Department of Agriculture told the Washington Post this week that a Chinese-owned pork producer that operates in the United States, Smithfield Foods, qualifies for a government bailout check, and so does a Brazilian-owned pork producer called JBS. Both corporations are the two largest pork producers in the country.

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The International Monetary Fund has cut its U.S. growth forecast for next year, warning that President Trump’s protectionist trade policies will harm growth domestically and around the world.

In its World Economic Outlook, released Monday evening, the IMF says the U.S. economy is expected to grow 2.9 percent this year and 2.5 percent next year. The organization had forecast in April that the U.S. economy would grow 2.7 percent in 2019.

“If you have the world’s two largest economies at odds, that’s a situation in which everyone is going to suffer,” said Maurice Obstfeld, chief economist at the IMF.

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Trade continues to dominate the political and economic headlines, with President Trump announcing a new round of tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. This latest comes on the heels of a summer during which the president vacillated between threats of additional tariffs—on auto imports and China—and friendly proclamations with the European Union to work towards “zero tariffs.”

The United States’ three largest trading partners—China, the European Union (EU), and NAFTA (Canada and Mexico)—have responded in-kind. These three trading partners have implemented tariffs on over $120 billion of U.S. exports.

This short analysis reviews the exposure local communities have to these trade policy changes. It draws on the Export Monitor, a unique dataset developed as part of the Global Cities Initiative, to estimate which local and regional economies rely the most on export industries targeted by retaliatory tariffs. Of course, the U.S.-imposed tariffs on imports also affect cities, regions, and states—as well as the firms, workers, and consumers within them.

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Farmers across the United States will soon begin receiving government checks as part of a billion-dollar bailout to buoy growers experiencing financial strain from President Donald Trump’s trade disputes with China.

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Alibaba’s founder and chairman Jack Ma says the Chinese mega e-commerce company no longer has plans to create 1 million jobs in the US, citing the ongoing trade conflict as the reason Alibaba is retracting its promise to Donald Trump. A new round of tariffs between the US and China will make mutual trade more difficult.

Ma told Chinese state-run news outlet Xinhua today that his promise was based on the assumption that the US and China would have “rational trade relations,” which is no longer the case. “This promise was based on friendly US-China partnership and rational trade relations,” Ma said. “The current situation has already ruined that. There is no way to complete the promise now, but we won’t stop working hard to promote the healthy development of China-US trade.” Last week, Ma announced his plans to retire this year and hand over the company to its current CEO. He denied rumors that he was being forced out.

The initial promise was made in January last year, right before Trump’s inauguration. At the time, reports of Ma’s bold claim were already skeptical, given the lack of specifics.

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Two weeks ago, Walmart asked the Trump administration to walk back its plan to put tariffs on Christmas lights, shampoo, dog food, luggage, mattresses, handbags, backpacks, vacuum cleaners, bicycles, cooking grills, cable cords and air conditioners.

In a letter to US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the company said expanded tariffs on Chinese imports would hurt its customers, its suppliers and the US economy.

“The immediate impact will be to raise prices on consumers and tax American business and manufacturers,” Walmart said.

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The debate over tariffs has mostly emphasized their impact on economic growth and jobs, which overlooks specific stories of suffering caused by President Donald Trump’s trade war.

Below are more than 200 examples of the damage done by Trump’s tariffs, aggregated with Republicans Fighting Tariffs. The victims and their stories differ, but the catalyst is the same.

Businesses of all sizes have seen their input costs rise because of tariffs. To maintain already slim profit margins, many of these businesses have no choice but to raise prices. Call this the “Trump tax.”

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