The Trump administration has been threatening and implementing tariffs and trade wars with Mexico, Canada, China, and the European Union, the top trading partners of the United States. Trump said in his State of the Union speech that there would be reciprocal tariffs for any country who lays tariffs on the United States. In retaliation, Canada, Mexico, and China have launched tariffs against a wide array of U.S. produced goods.
The Trump administration and their pundits are claiming that China, Mexico, and Canada will pay for these tariffs but this is absolutely not true. When a company in the U.S. imports goods from China, the importing company must pay for the tariff, not the Chinese government. In turn, companies across the U.S. importing goods from China, Mexico, and Canada will then pass the tariffs onto us and, in many cases, companies can disproportionately raise prices to take advantage of the price increases. This may or may not discourage people here from buying these imported products, as Trump intends. But, in the end, it’s workers in the U.S., China, Mexico, and Canada who will be paying the price of the tariffs and trade war.
Trump, his allies, and his mouthpieces will try to paint this trade war as the people of the United States versus the Chinese, Canadians, and Mexicans but this is nonsense. These trade wars represent the ambitions of the capitalists in each country trying to dominate the markets around the world and reap ever more profits from the working class. The Trump administration fired the first shot, but other countries and their capitalists are firing back. The bosses’ need and greed for endless profits has led us to a trade war but could easily lead to a shooting war. In either case it will be working people in every country who will have to bare the greatest burden. Workers in the U.S. and in every country should see who their real enemy is. It’s not each other, but the billionaires and other capitalists in their own countries.
