Critique: Trump Just Started an Unwinnable Trade War

   Trump just started an unwinnable trade war is an editorial article published in LA Times written by the Times Editorial Board. The Times’ editorial board is conformed by serious, educated and specialized members. Their intended audience is diverse, but mostly adults.

   The article discusses Trump’s decision on putting a 25% tariff on imported steel and a 10% tariff on imported aluminum starting on March 23. This new tariff will apply to every country except for Mexico and Canada. According to him, the reason for this new law if to “bring steel and aluminum jobs back to the United Stated by making foreign version of the metals more expensive”.

   The editorial argues that this is not the correct way to respond to the problem and that this would probably just have more cons than pros. they argue that this type of policy only invites the United States’ trading partner to respond in the same way and impose similar policies. Most they discuss that this decision would most likely cost more jobs in many other different sectors of the economy than the jobs it could generate for aluminum and steel companies.

   I agree with their point of view because I believe that first of all Trump and his supporters need to realize that the world is not the same as it used to be in 1950, 1960 or even in the early 2000s. We live in a globalized world were every economy depends of one another and we need to realize that the United States doesn’t control the global market as they used to do in the post-war era. Those times the US had control over most of the countries and could impose the rules they wanted to because those countries depended on their supplies to rebuild their nations after World War II.

   We need to realize that we live in a completely different world where there are many countries that make up the global market and not only the United States. As we can read in the article other countries can respond to this tariff with another policy that might hurt the US’ economy. For example, Germany responded by saying that if this tariff becomes effective then they are going to impose a tariff to all the cars coming into their country that are manufactured in the United States. These are the type of things that Trump doesn’t realize. He can’t go around manipulating countries with his decisions because every country depends on each other. There is no one-way commerce. Every single industry is interconnected and by making a decision like the one discussed in this article it will only cause harm and bring more problems.