Trump makes good on threat of far-reaching tariffs; fashion and retail industries react
Liberation or decimation? While the 47th President of the United States is often seen as mercurial in his decision-making and penchant for threats, Donald Trump made good on a promise to impose further tariffs, this time mainly reciprocal to U.S. trade partners. In the first 48 hours of the announcement, stocks plummeted, and affected countries, including the EU and China, slapped back with promises and even actions to do the same. The consensus among economists—who have warned that tariffs could end up causing a global recession—is that consumer prices for produce, clothing, electronics, cars, and many other goods will rise. President Donald Trump – White House President Trump claims this extreme action is needed to bring manufacturing and related jobs back to the U.S. (though tariffs will negatively affect factories and jobs like those of foreign carmakers, such as Hyundai, who already operate in the U.S., punishing existing compliance with said goals). Economic pundits and journalists have blown holes in Trump’s theory and claims, according to the Washington Post, most of his understanding of tariffs is incorrect, and the President’s claim of bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars from China during the tariffs in his first term was closer to $75 million, of which $28 million went to bail out the U.S. farmers affected; he also claims NAFTA resulted in the U.S. losing 90,000 factories, another figure the result of Trump’s exaggeration. In this round of tariffs, Canada and Mexico are not included, despite being maligned by the President just weeks ago as “bad faith actors” who hugely benefit from the U.S., leading some analysts to posit that he is using backroad attempts to build and rely on existing manufacturing and trading with the neighbors to the North and South. Economists said tariffs will likely raise prices consumers pay for everyday necessities like phones, cars, apparel, and groceries, a word Trump recently deemed “old-fashioned.” Thus, while the fashion industry…
Read moreI want the Republican Party to work with me to make legal immigration more streamlined: Congressman Shri Thanedar
Congressman Shri Thanedar has just been elected to the US House from Michigan’s 13th Congressional district for a second term, defeating his Republican challenger, Martell Bivings, by a big margin. Born in India, Thanedar moved to the US as a student and was a successful businessman and entrepreneur before he gave it all up and chose public life and politics. A champion of immigration reforms that will benefit Indians stuck on long green card queues and a robust US-India relationship; he spoke to Times of India’s Ishani Duttagupta on diverse issues covering the challenges faced by Democratic members of the US Congress, under the new Republican administration, to the growing number of Indian Americans in politics. Edited excerpts from the interview.There are a lot of concerns among Indians about tougher immigration policies by the administration of President Donald Trump. Will you be supporting immigration reforms in the House of Representatives?Immigration was one of the three key issues that Trump talked about during his campaign and what appealed to American voters was his stand on immigration. When Republicans and Trump talk about immigration issues they are largely talking about the chaos at the Southern border [of America] from where millions of people are crossing over and coming into the United States and many of these people are not good people. This was what he projected and people accepted that. Trump is very motivated to fix that problem – but will he be able to fix it we don’t know; only time will tell. He has articulated the problem very well and that has caught the fancy of the American voters and he got elected because of that. A lot of times, our Republican colleagues focus on what they call the illegal or undocumented people migrating into the US. But the larger issue to my mind is legal immigration. America is a nation of immigrants – the greatness of America lies in…
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