If nearly every product you purchase in the coming months is more expensive than usual, look no further than the White House. The Trump Trade War™️ escalated this month when the president announced a 25 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of goods imported from China. China retaliated Monday by announcing a tariff as high as 25 percent on over 5,000 products made in America, including peanuts, sugar, wheat, chicken, and turkey, CNBC reports.
The Trump Trade War™️ is going to hit American consumers, as well as small businesses, right in the wallet. One of the businesses impacted is Rad Power Bikes, an ebike seller based in Seattle. They were first hit with tariffs back in August, when Trump announced a 25 percent increase on the cost of bikes manufactured in China, as most ebikes are (along with everything else). Overnight, according to the company, the cost of an ebike raised by $200. This made the bikes unaffordable to a number of their customers.
"This tariff proved to be an insurmountable barrier for many of our customers as we received thousands of emails from people who were devastated that our bikes were no longer in their budget," the company founders wrote in a blog post. "There were some who abandoned the idea of ebikes altogether and there were some who were forced to purchase cheap, low-quality ebikes that ended up not performing as they should have. Either way, many people got a bad first experience with ebikes, which is not just bad for us as a manufacturer, but for the ebike industry as a whole."
The company decided to absorb the cost themselves—$200 per bicycle—which may be good customer service but is certainly not great for their own bottom line. And they're not alone when it comes to making these tough decisions. I talked to a shoe seller east of Seattle who is worried that their business won't be able to survive this kind of tariff. "Running shoes are already expensive," the co-owner said. "If the prices go up 25 percent, I'm afraid we'll go out of business.“
Unfortunately, Trump does have the power to unilaterally impose his own tariffs on Chinese-made goods, and there's very little Congress—or his own advisors—can do to stop him. But if anything good comes from this, maybe it will be this: Trump's base includes a hell of a lot of people who are going to be directly impacted by this trade war. He doesn't give a shit that even his own advisors have cautioned against this, as the Washington Post reported, and apparently thinks his supporters will stick by him even as they see their own wealth shrink. And it’s certainly possible he's right. People vote against their own self-interest all the time. Still, any time you hear someone bitching about how the price of everything has gone up, remind them to thank Donald Trump.
