The Washington Post on Wednesday reported on the likely impacts of former President Donald Trump's economic proposals and found that they would likely cause massive disruptions were they actually implemented as described.
At the center of Trump's plans is a scheme to slap tariffs of 10 percent or higher on all foreign goods, which most economists say would lead to a massive resurgence of inflation given how important imported products are not only for American consumers but for American manufacturers.
Douglas A. Irwin, an economist at Dartmouth College, told the Post that such a policy would be an unprecedented self-inflicted economic disruption.
“We are talking about a plan of historic significance: It would be enormous, and the blowback would be even more enormous,” he explained. “This would stand way off the charts.”
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The Post notes that the United States at the moment imports more than $1 trillion worth of goods from overseas every year and points to independent estimates projecting that a 20 percent tariff would result in a $4 trillion tax hike on American consumers over the next decade.
And Trump's plans wouldn't only affect goods imported from adversarial nations such as China, but from friendly nations such as Canada.
"Gas prices would increase by as much as 75 cents per gallon in the Midwest, where most refined products come from Canada, according to Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy," writes the Post. "Overall, the Peterson Institute for International Economics said Trump’s tariffs would cost the typical household $2,600 per year; the Yale Budget Lab said in an estimate released Wednesday that the annual cost could be as high as $7,600 for a typical household."
Neil Saunders, a managing director at the analytics company GlobalData, told the Post that ordinary consumers would immediately feel the pinch.
"We’re not talking about caviar — these are things that people have to buy," he said. "They’re essentials."