Inconvenient Truths About Tariffs and America's Trade Deficits

The chart shows that foreign tariffs on US goods and services are not much higher than US tariffs on their foreign counterparts. European tariffs on US goods and services are less than 2% higher than their American counterparts. There were no tariffs between the US, Canada, and Mexico prior to Trump's trade war. My forecast is the planned Republican tax cuts guarantee that the US continues to run high trade deficits. In fact, they will grow as higher government deficits raise US interest rates and strengthen the dollar. A higher dollar reduces the price of imported goods and services and raises the price of American exports. In light of the small tariff differentials no trade agreement is likely to compress the US trade deficit. Now there are always non-tariff barriers that a free trade agreement could dismantle, but some will undoutedly remain because many counties have higher quality and safety standards than the US. For example, European meat has lower bacter...