Tag Archive for: Made in America

‘He Has The Political Mandate’: Companies Scramble To Respond To Trump’s ‘Beautiful’ Tariff Hikes

Companies are scrambling to respond to President-elect Donald Trump’s “beautiful” tariff proposals that his administration may seek to enact early in his second term.

Proactive steps that companies are taking to evade anticipated price increases include stockpiling inventory in U.S. warehouses and weighing whether they need to completely eliminate China from their supply chains and raise the price of imported goods affected by tariff hikes, whose costs will be passed onto consumers.

Free-trade skeptics are touting companies’ anticipatory actions as delivering a clear sign that Trump’s proposed tariff hikes are already achieving their intended effect of pressuring retailers to eliminate China from their supply chains. However, some policy experts are warning that higher tariffs will be a regressive tax for America’s lower and middle-income families and make inflation worse, according to retailers and economists who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

On the campaign trail, Trump proposed a universal tariff of up to 20% on all imports coming into the U.S. and a 60% or higher tariff on all imports from China. Trump is considering Robert Lighthizer, the former U.S. trade representative during his administration’s first term who is well-known for favoring high tariffs, to serve as his second administration’s trade czar, the Wall Street Journal first reported.

‘Mitigation Strategies To Lessen The Impact’

Companies are taking preemptive measures, such as stockpiling goods in U.S. warehouses, to work proactively against anticipated price increases that higher tariffs would inflict, Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chains and customs policy for the National Retail Federation, told the DCNF during an interview.

“They’re looking at different mitigation strategies to lessen the impact that they might feel from the tariffs,” Gold told the DCNF. “One of those strategies is to start looking at potentially bringing in cargo, bringing products earlier to get ahead of potential tariffs that Trump might put in place.”

Importing goods into the U.S. ahead of schedule leads to additional costs for retailers that will likely be passed onto consumers, but waiting to import goods from China after a 60% or higher tariff on Chinese imports goes into effect would be substantially more expensive, according to Gold.

A recent NRF study projected that Trump’s proposed tariff hikes on consumer products would cost American consumers an additional $46 billion to $78 billion a year.

“A tariff is a tax paid by the U.S. importer, not a foreign country or the exporter,” Gold said in a press release accompanying the study. “This tax ultimately comes out of consumers’ pockets through higher prices.”

Decoupling From China

Part of the rationale behind Trump’s tariff proposals is to force manufacturing jobs to return to the United States and pressure companies to completely eliminate China from their supply chains, according to Mark DiPlacido, policy advisor at American Compass.

“I hope in addition to stockpiling, they’re also looking at actually moving their supply chains out of China and ideally back to the United States,” DiPlacido told the DCNF.

“For a long time, the framing has been what is best for just increasing trade flows, regardless of the direction those flows are going. What that’s resulted in for the last 25 years is a flow of manufacturing, a flow of factories and a flow of jobs, especially solid middle class jobs out of the United States and across the world,” DiPlacido added.

But completely shifting production outside of China is not feasible for some retailers even if companies have taken further steps to diversify their supply chain for the past decade, according to Gold.

“It takes a while to make those shifts and not everyone is able to do that, Gold acknowledged. “Nobody has the [production] capacity that China does. Trying to find that within multiple countries is a challenge. And it’s not just the capacity, but the skilled workforce as well.”

In addition, companies who move production out of China to avoid a 60% tariff on imported goods from the nation could still get hit by a 20% across the board tariff if they move their supply chain to countries other than the United States, Gold and several economists told the DCNF.

“They’re talking about tariffs on imports for which there’s not a domestic producer to switch to,” Clark Packard, a research fellow on trade policy at the CATO institute, told the DCNF in an interview. “For example, we don’t make coffee in the United States, so why are we going to impose a tariff on coffee?”

“Who are we trying to protect?” he added.

Some economists are also pessimistic that the president-elect’s planned tariff hikes will ultimately bring jobs that moved overseas to cheaper labor markets back to the United States.

“What we actually saw from the 2018-2019 trade war was a decrease in manufacturing output and employment because of the tariffs,” Erica York, senior economist and research director of the Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy, told the DCNF in an interview. “It played out just like every economist predicted: higher costs for U.S. consumers, reduced output, reduced incomes for American workers, foreign retaliation that’s harmful.”

The president-elect’s proposed tariff hikes could also eliminate more jobs than those saved or created as a result of protecting domestic industries, such as the U.S. steel or solar manufacturing industries, that may benefit from higher tariffs on foreign competitors, Packard told the DCNF.

“It’s disproportionate — the cost that is passed onto the broader economy to protect a very small slice of U.S. employment,” Packard said. Trump’s 25% tariff on imported steel enacted during his first administration slightly increased employment in the U.S. steel industry, but each job that was maintained or created came at a cost of roughly $650,000 that likely killed jobs in other sectors forced to buy more expensive steel, according to Packard.

‘Bipartisan Recognition’

Despite tariffs’ potential to force companies to raise the price of goods they import into the United States, DiPlacido defended Trump’s proposed tariff hikes as essential to eliminating U.S. dependence on China for a variety of strategic goods and consumer products.

“We need to be able to manufacture a broad range of goods in the United States. And we need the job security and the economic security that a strong manufacturing industrial base provides,” DiPlacido said. “That’s going to be important to any future conflict or emergency that the United States may have with China or with anyone else.”

DiPlacido, citing Trump’s dominant electoral performance, also believes Trump has the “mandate” to carry out the tariff proposals he floated during the campaign.

“There’s a sort of a bipartisan recognition of the problem. Even the Biden administration kept almost all of Trump’s tariffs in place,” DiPlacido told the DCNF. “I think he has the political mandate, and that’s often a harder thing to get.”

However, some economists are questioning whether the thousands of dollars of projected costs that American families would be forced to pay as a result of these tariff hikes could create political backlash that has so far failed to materialize against Trump and Biden’s relatively similar trade policies.

“Voters were rightly pretty upset about price increases and inflation,” Packard told the DCNF. “We’re talking about utilizing a tool in tariffs that will increase relative prices.”

“Tariffs as a whole are a regressive tax,” Gold told the DCNF. “They certainly hit low and middle income consumers the hardest.”

Retailers are forecasting a decrease in demand for consumer products as a result of Trump’s tariff proposals, according to Gold.

The incoming Senate Republican leader has also notably criticized Trump’s proposed tariff hikes.

“I get concerned when I hear we just want to uniformly impose a 10% or 20% tariff on everything that comes into the United States,” Republican South Dakota Sen. John Thune, Senate GOP leader, said in August during a panel on agriculture policy in his home state. “Generally, that’s a recipe for increased inflation.”

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Contributor.

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#QueersForPalestine – ‘Axis Of Resistance’ Houthi Imams: ‘The Promiscuous, Deformed, And Homosexuals Were All Created By America’

PalestiniansYemen | Special Dispatch No. 11383


Since the Hamas October 7 massacre, movements such as “Gays for Palestine” and “Queers for Palestine” have become an integral part of the pro-Hamas rallies in the West, supporting the genocidal slogan “From the River to the Sea.”

Earlier this month, MEMRI published a collection of videos of prominent Palestinian Islamic, political, and cultural figures stating that Palestinian people “will not accept a single homosexual” on the land of Palestine, and that homosexuals “should be thrown head first from the rooftop of the tallest building.”[1]

The following is a collection of videos of prominent figures from Ansar Allah, aka the Houthis,  making statements such as “one of the heinous moral crimes of the Israelites in our age is that… they are promoting homosexuality, in violation of human nature and the laws of Allah,” and “the promiscuous, deformed, and homosexuals were all created by America.”

The Iran-backed Houthis, part of the “axis of resistance,” have been assisting Hamas throughout the current Gaza war by firing ballistic missiles at the Israeli city of Eilat. They have also blocked and targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Bab el-Mandeb strait.

It should be noted that Houthi figures have accused Israel, where Gay Pride parades are openly held, of spreading homosexuality. Prominent Palestinian clerics have also accused Israel of bringing homosexuality to the Holy Land. Ironically, were members of movements such as “Gays for Palestine” and “Queers for Palestine” to live in Gaza or in any of the lands of the “axis of resistance,”  they would probably need to seek asylum in Israel.

In February 2024, amid the current Gaza war, an Israeli court decided that Palestinian LGBTQ+ individuals may do this. Tel Aviv District Court Judge Michal Agmon Gonen ruled that “Palestinians threatened due to their sexual orientation can apply for asylum.”[2]

Houthi Friday Sermon In Dhamar, Yemen By Imam Muhammad Al-Mu’ayyad: The Time Has Come For Humanity To Get Rid Of America – The Country Of Evil, Corruption, And Homosexuality; Yemen Will Lead The Jihad Against The U.S., Israel – January 12, 2024

“More than 400 years after America was established, the time has come for humanity to rid itself of that country of evil, corruption, and homosexuality that is America.” (Source: MEMRI TV)

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, click here or below:

Friday Sermon In Dhamar, Yemen By Houthi Islamic Scholar Muhammad Al-Mu’ayyad: The Jews Lead The U.S., Use It To Spread Moral Corruption On Earth, Seek To Promote Homosexuality, Destroy Muslim Women’s Chastity – June 16, 2023

“One of the heinous moral crimes of the Israelites in our age is that in a dangerous precedent, they are promoting homosexuality, in violation of human nature and the laws of Allah. This heralds divine wrath and divine punishment. Today, the U.S. wants to spread homosexuality all over the world. And what is the position of those so-called Muslims who normalize [relations with Israel]? They will not fear to normalize even homosexuality. We saw how they laid the foundations for prostitution, and how they prepared their societies in Saudi Arabia and in the UAE to accept any deviation, no matter how perverted or heinous it is. They are working on it day and night.”

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, click here or below:

Houthi Islamic Scholar Dr. Ahmad Al-Shami: The West Has A Double Standard Regarding Freedom Of Expression – Why It Is OK To Burn The Quran But Not The LGBTQ+ Flag? – September 13, 2021

“What did the defeatists and the Americans say? They said that this was freedom of expression. However, when a zealous Christian American burned the flag of the homosexuals – the flag of the people who allow for homosexuality and lesbianism – he was sentenced to 18 years by the court in America. Log on to the BBC website. They talk about it. 18 years in prison.

“Why is burning the Quran considered personal freedom and freedom of expression, while burning the colorful flag hurts the feelings of several thousands depraved homosexuals? Burning the Quran does not hurt the feelings of one billion and 600 million people? This is strange. These are double standards.

[…]

“When the official authorities close a certain restaurant, that has a gay logo, then you hear all the crows crowing on Facebook and on social media, and silencing anyone who wants to defend this move, saying: ‘Shut up, don’t say a word,’ accusing anyone who talks [about this] of belonging to ISIS. All you promiscuous and morally depraved [people] are the creation of America. The promiscuous, deformed, and homosexuals were all created by America.”

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, click here or below:

Lebanese Researcher Ali Fadlallah On Houthi TV: The West Is Weak And Reliant On Technology, While Muslim Fighters Are Strong, Motivated; It’s Good That Tel Aviv Is The Gay Capital Of The World – Gays And Perverts Have No Fighting Spirit – November 11, 2022

“No Western nation can produce this kind of fighters, in terms of face-to-face combat. They defeat them only from afar, using technology and [advanced] weapons.

[…]

“The good news is — and this is well known — that Tel Aviv, the [Israeli] entity’s capital is the capital city of the world’s homosexuals. This is good news for us. These people — who are perverted to such an extent in their personal conduct — will never fight.”

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, click here or below:

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REFERENCES:

[1] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 11376, #QueersForPalestine – Palestinian Imams: Palestinians ‘Will Not Accept A Single Homosexual On The Land Of Palestine’; ‘Homosexuals Should Be Thrown Head First From The Rooftop Of The Tallest Building,’ June 4, 2024.

[2] Haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-02-07/ty-article/.premium/foreign-ministry-boasts-lgbtq-palestinian-asylum-ruling-interior-minister-seeks-
reversal/0000018d-83fb-dfd5-adff-dbfbc7a00000, February 7, 2024; Jpost.com/israel-news/article-785171, February 5, 2024.

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI report with videos is republish with permission. ©All rights reserved.