President Trump leaves the Oval office to announce tariffs on what he called “day of liberation” on April 2, 2025.
Yair Reiner sells kitchen utensils: a splash protector for the kitchen of the stove called Frywall.
But when President Trump imposed 145% tariffs on Chinese products, Reiner knew that his Brooklyn business was In trouble.
“When the rates were at 145%, it seemed that some had their boot in the neck of my business, and I could not get any oxygen,” he said. “I didn’t know what my next movement was going to be.”
Reiner manufactures the splashes guard in China. So when Trump Those rates dropped to 30% Last week, Reiner, the CEO of Gowanus Kitchen Lab, said he felt relief, but only some.
“The boot is still there,” he said. “The pressure level has decreased, but I am certainly not breathing well and it is very difficult to find out what my next steps will be.”
Before Trump’s commercial war, Reiner says he was paying tariffs of about 3% or 4% to bring his splashes guards to the country, so 30% is not low for him at any time.
But here is a sign of how notable Trump rates changes have their legs: they have made 30% feel like something or relief.
The table that shows tariffs that President Trump imposed on April 2, 2025, were exhibited in the White House. Trump stopped the tariffs a week later.
This is part of a tariff pattern
This pattern has been repeatedly developed with Trump’s chaotic tariff policy: first suggests a high number, just to reduce or sacrifice exemptions.
April 2, for example, Trump Announced tariffs In almost all countries, some of them prohibitively high. A week later, Trump Removed many of those ratesestablishing a rate or 10% in goods in most countries.
But the final result was still a broad tariff that did not exist before the Trump Tok office.
Marcus Noland, Director of Studies of the Peterson Institute of International Economics, attracts cervical whip in a historical perspective.
“With the so -called ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, it led us to catastrophic levels,” says Noland. “And now with these cuts, he has brought us back to approximately where they were in 1940.”
Currently, the average effective rate in the US is almost 18%, the highest level since 1934, according to the Yale Budget Laboratory. That represents an acute peak of the last two decades, when the figure had one leg in the low digits.
Despite that, Noland believes that Trump’s tariff changes have successful reformulated tariffs for investors.
“Markets seem to believe that things have returned to normal, but they are not,” said Noland. “The rates are now much higher than when Trump assumed the position.”
A container ship is docked in the port of Los Angeles on May 6, 2025. The port saw a significant fall in the expected load ships after President Trump imposed tariffs pronounced to Chinese imports.
Trump has been doing this all his career
In the business world, this tendency to prevent the numbers in a negotiation again, something called anchor effect is.
“In many negotiations, it opens high to anchor the party at the end of the range, or open, depending on whether the purchase or sale of whether the sale of if it is,” said Richard Shell, professor at the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“Then, when you enter with a more reasonable sacrifice, that is still very favorable for you, there is a psychological relief that is established.”
Shell has studied Trump’s commercial career and said his tariff changes seem like a classic Trump movement. But he said Trump’s intention is not clear.
“It is not clear if the president is doing this on purpose or if he is doing it because he throws his fishing cane, his fishing line, and see whether or not the problem causes and if he causes and again the problems.
President Trump leaves the White House on May 12, 2025.
But uncertainty has caused its own problems
And all that change creates problems, namely uncertainty, said Scott Lincicome, vice president of the General Economy of the Cato Libertarian Institute.
“If you simply do not know what the rate rate will be within 10 days from now on, it is quite impossible for you to invest, for example, in a new factory in the United States, or for you to accommodate and a long -term contract with a foreigner”, Lincic. “Lincic.
Trump has justified his tariffs in saying that they will create long -term profits, in the form of more manufacturing in the United States..
Reiner, the splashes guard manufacturer in Brooklyn, does not necessarily agree with that goal.
“I could see the logic of that,” he said. “What gets in the way is that I think they earn long -term hinges in long -term planning, and I can’t do it.”
Trump has said that China’s rates would only last 90 days. The United States and China could reach a longer term agreement before that … but if not, that means that the rate rate could change again on the road.
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