4 ms·
It's not an economic move, it's a political one. Trump needs votes from agricultural states like Ohio which would be severely impacted by these export cuts.
by tedk-42 7y ago
It's not an economic move, it's a political one. Trump needs votes from agricultural states like Ohio which would be severely impacted by these export cuts.
- reaperducer 7y agoYou're almost right. According to this past Sunday's New York Times, the play here is that Trump raised tariffs on China this time because it refused to stop selling fentanyl to the United States. Naturally, this will be a big play in rural states where it's a big problem. For some reason, the Times was the only place I saw this reported. Every other medium I looked at just glossed it over as "Evil Trump is raising tariffs on China and that means your iPhone will cost more!"
- rgbrenner 7y agoGoogle says the fentanyl part was on npr, wsj, reuters cnbc, bloomberg, etc. Trump even tweeted it. But oddly I didn't hear about this until your post. So thanks for mentioning it.
- mbreese 7y agoCompletely agree -- I didn't hear about it either until this post -- and I'm in an area of the country where this would be important news. But that's the problem with so much noise, when there is a sliver of signal, it just gets lost.
- dirtyid 7y agoChina rescheduled fentanyl in response to Trump on May 1st. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-chinas-class-scheduling-fentanyl/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-ch... One month later: "Most fentanyl is now trafficked across US-Mexico border, not from China" https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/most-fentanyl-is-now-trafficked-across-us-mexico-border-not-from-china https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/most-fentanyl-is-now-traf... Because Mexico is importing fentanyl precusors from China and taking over distribution like everyone predicted. Not much more China can do, you can't exactly ban basic chemistry.