Bloomberg News —— Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said that the tariff policy in 2025 has already hit the U.S. economy, and he expects the Trump administration to ease trade tensions next year.
Moynihan said in an interview that Bank of America currently observes that the tariff policy is "moderating rather than escalating": The U.S. applies an average tariff rate of 15% to most countries, and higher rates are imposed only on countries that have not committed to increasing purchases of U.S. goods or reducing non-tariff barriers.
Moynihan said, "For most trading partners, the increase in tariffs from a general 10% to 15% is not particularly significant. This is also the basis for our team's judgment that the tariff policy has begun to moderate."
In April this year, Trump announced a 10% base tariff on all imported goods into the United States;
in July, he also announced a series of new tariff measures. If fully implemented, the average tariff rate on major trading partners of the U.S. is expected to rise to 15.2%. According to Bloomberg Economics, since Trump returned to the White House, the overall average tariff rate in the U.S. has risen from 2% to 14%.
Moynihan added that North American trade partners are special —— the U.S. plans to renegotiate the USMCA next year. "But overall, the tariff policy has basically reached the end stage," he said.
He pointed out that in the second quarter of this year, the tariff increases and trade policy uncertainties had impacted small and medium-sized enterprises, and subsequent Federal Reserve interest rate cuts somewhat alleviated the pressure. Currently, for small and medium-sized enterprises, tariffs are no longer the main concern, and the core problem is the uncertainty of labor supply, due to some of the Trump administration's immigration policies "not yet finalized."
Original: toutiao.com/article/7589071322982941190/
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