On April 15 Eastern Daylight Time, the White House website of the United States released a fact sheet about the "Section 232" investigation, stating that due to China's counter tariffs, China currently faces up to 245% tariffs.

The Trump administration's tariff policies have been changing repeatedly, and the game of increasing tariff numbers is still accelerating. The latest figure of 245% tariff on China has left the outside world stunned.

In an interview with Capital News (WeChat ID: Capitalnews), renowned American economist and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said that tariffs exceeding a certain threshold will only lead to the "decoupling" of the Chinese and American economies, and this threshold has already been exceeded. The continued imposition of tariffs by the Trump administration is merely political theater.

Jeffrey Sachs data photo. Source: Visual China

Sachs said that the Trump team has proposed many motives for imposing additional tariffs: narrowing the trade deficit, countering China, revitalizing manufacturing, increasing fiscal revenue, and bargaining with other countries. However, reality has proven that these policies are both ineffective and failed, resulting in the United States being at odds with the world, causing financial turbulence, severely damaging industries that should be protected, and increasing the cost of living for the public. This not only harms the globe but also involves illegal actions (based on Trump's unilateral announcement of a "national emergency"), and is likely to be overturned by U.S. courts.

On the 16th local time, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he would sue the Trump administration over the tariff issue. Newsom criticized the Trump administration's use of tariffs as "illegal," causing serious confusion and destruction to the U.S. economy.

Previously, on the 14th, multiple small American businesses jointly filed a lawsuit against the government in the U.S. Court of International Trade, arguing that without congressional approval, the U.S. government has no right to impose comprehensive tariff increases, demanding that the government's tariff measures under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act be halted.

"There is absolutely no scientific basis for this, and Trump has never attempted to provide any theoretical justification for the imposition of tariffs. This is the result of arbitrary decision-making and inept governance," Sachs said. Trump's policies have caused severe market volatility globally, increased uncertainty, and generally reduced corporate valuations, which is a typical case of a lose-lose strategy.

Sachs believes that measured by the actual added value of manufacturing as a percentage of GDP, the shrinkage of America's manufacturing sector over the past 25 years has actually been very small. What has significantly declined is the number of manufacturing jobs, not the industrial added value. The decline in employment is mainly due to productivity improvements brought about by automation upgrades.

"Trump's tariff policy cannot truly achieve large-scale manufacturing repatriation. Even if there is some effect, most positions will be low-paying and unattractive jobs," Sachs said.

Source: WeChat Official Account of Chang'an Street Know-Things

Reporter: Li Zhihong

Editor: U072

Original Article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7494476390985892403/

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