South Haven News

By Gabriel Moncivais

As I have been interested and deep diving into the major subjects that are rarely talked about around the area, and the talk of America’s upcoming president, there has been something brought up about what will happen to the nation. However, there has been a subject that has set some citizens in a worrisome state, that is the upcoming tariff plans.

As of writing this, some people don’t know what a tariff is and what it might do to America and its economy, so I’ll give a simple explanation. A tariff is a form of tax that the government charges on goods imported into the country. It’s like a fee added to the price of products that come from other countries. It is very simple, yet can easily throw off the economy because the countries that are opposed to a tariff have the option to throw one back, causing a trade war.

Now, as for our upcoming president’s plan, he wants to send tariffs to the neighboring countries, Canada and Mexico. The reason why he wants to set these tariffs is because he wants America to concentrate on American products and not depend on foreign trades for our economy, which supposedly will make said economy better.

It seems to be a pretty good plan on the surface, but by following what happened in the past—specifically during the Depression in the 1930s—there was an act called the Tariff Act of 1930, which created the Hawley-Smoot Tariff. The creators, Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley had the same intentions, but only worsened the American economy since other countries were irritated and installed tariffs to America, making the Depression era worse economically.

This more modern plan will have the same consequences. If a country is held up with a tariff to where it will disrupt their economy, they will play the same card back, also rocking the opposing country’s economy. Following this information, If the upcoming president follows through with his plans by implementing tariffs on countries that have greatly traded with America for a long time and have been allies for a long time also, the countries will fight back with more tariffs, raising our general cost by 25% according to economical professionals, in which some said “In a trade war, nobody wins.” since it will damage everyone’s economy.

The neighboring countries, Canada and Mexico, are trying to not let this happen because as previously mentioned, it will disrupt everyone’s economy. As Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum states, “There will be no trade war,” as she is determined to avoid it by warning the upcoming president the dangers of tariffs because they believe there will be no way but fighting fire with fire if the tariff plan follows through. This will either have no affect and not change anything, or will disrupt the global economy and will have the probability of entering a second depression.