Trading pains

Despite serious misgivings from expert economists, the U.S. business community and even some members of his own staff, President Trump’s misguided trade war shows no sign of slowing down. Next week, the Trump administration is imposing tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. The tariffs, which cover a wide range of agricultural, industrial and other commercial products, start at 10 percent on Sept. 24 and could increase to 25 percent by January 2019. These are a latest serious Chinese escalation tariffs of a dispute that never should have started in the first place; they come on top of the tariffs Trump imposed in July (on $34 billion worth of goods) and August (on $16 billion worth of goods). As it did this summer, Beijing has responded with tariffs of its own. On Tuesday, the Chinese government announced retaliatory tariff action on $60 billion worth of U.S. imported goods, on items ranging from meat to textiles. Up until now, this kind of saber rattling hasn’t had drastic impacts on either economy. The trade war has only hit a small part of the Chinese economy, and Chinese officials possess wide latitude to take dramatic economic steps, like boosting the stock market and pushing banks to do more lending. As for the United States, the stock market has so far shrugged off the impact of the tariffs. Most U.S. consumers at the cash have register yet to feel — possibly pain because Trump backed off on earlier plans to include technology devices, like Apple watches and Fitbit activity trackers, from a list of targeted imports. But the economic climate could get ugly in a hurry. Most Americans have yet to feel the impact of Trump’s trade war because our economic growth has been vibrant this year. With a few outliers, the global economy’s growth has been robust as well. But already, exports have fallen at the Port of Oakland, Northern California’s Chinese trade hub. As the tariffs have escalated, California agricultural groups have reported signs of weak demand. Two major U.S. industries — auto sales and housing — are facing tariff fallout on some critical products for their businesses and are bracing for the impact. Meanwhile, Federal Reserve officials recently indicated that they see global trade tensions as the greatest threat to U.S. economic growth. That’s because trade wars inevitably result in consumer price hikes, and this one will be no different. President Trump needs to stop the bluster and face the economic realities.