Neighborhood Ministries

President Trump is not just throwing his weight around, he knows the power of money in diplomacy. When he threatens a country with a 25% tariff on their goods, it is not an idle threat.  Only 2% or less of our economy depends on goods from either Canada or Mexico but 25% of the economies of both Canada and Mexico depend on goods from the United States. While it will cause a rise in prices of some goods in the United States, it could wreck the economies of Canada and Mexico. That was evident when Mexico immediately sent soldiers to their borders to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States when President Trump ordered them to do so or face high tariffs. The Presidents of both Canada and Mexico immediately flew to Washington to promise lowering their own tariffs if President Trump did not impose the tariffs. Countries in Europe have been just as quick to try to negotiate lower tariffs on US goods. China has already declared an economic emergency as their economy crashed due to the tariffs, which cut off the flow of cheap goods to the US. Some countries have tariffs on American goods of 50% or higher, so 25% is not unreasonable. In addition, American manufacturers have begun moving plants back to the United States to avoid the tariffs bringing jobs back to the US and reducing the outflow of cash to other countries. By threatening to place tariffs on imports, President Trump is forcing those countries to cut tariffs they are imposing on our goods. He is leveling the playing field so we can compete on the world market.

Many people think that President Trump is recklessly using tariffs to protect American jobs but do not realize that money talks. After World War II, America dominated the manufacturing market. Factories throughout Europe, in both Allied and Axis countries were devastated by the war but factories in America were untouched. America had produced most of the war materials for the Allies and quickly switched to producing domestic goods. Money flowed into the US to purchase goods not available in Europe and Americans prospered. As Europe recovered, they imposed high tariffs on American goods to protect their own manufacturers and demand for American goods dropped. For many years the United States has been very lenient in international trade. We have opened our borders to cheap foreign goods by keeping tariffs very low or non-existent. Yet other countries have imposed high tariffs which have discouraged their citizens from purchasing American goods. As a result,  it resulted in the decline of American manufacturing which could not compete with the cheaper foreign goods, resulting in money and jobs flowing out of America. In addition, our manufacturers moved plants and jobs to Mexico where they could produce products cheaper and ship the products back to the US to sell. Personal and national debt has mounted as we have shifted from high paying manufacturing jobs to low paying service jobs. It also poses a threat in an emergency. We saw how dangerous that was when the planes hit the twin towers and later when Covid hit and we closed our borders. We were heavily dependent on foreign goods and suddenly they weren’t available. After Covid, we could not get medicine and medical equipment which we had depended on China to supply, since it was no longer produced here.