On Balance | Tariff flip-flops and why Trump’s attack on China is misguided

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Shoppers browse at an Apple store in New York, on April 4. Photo: EPA-EFE

As of Sunday evening US Eastern Time, when this piece was being drafted, US President Donald Trump suggested that he is indeed considering a new sectoral tariff regime on smartphones, computers and other electronics that our lives depend on.

This was the latest development, not long after US Customs and Border Protection uploaded a bulletin past 10pm on Friday night, notifying anyone who might have been refreshing the agency’s site at that hour that those products would be exempt from Trump “Liberation Day” tariffs.

If you’re heavily invested in Apple, you might have been ecstatic when you read the news about the exclusion and perhaps bought another whack of shares in the maker of mostly made-in-China iPhones. And if you did, you surely would have been miffed to learn that Apple’s marquee product could still face some level of tariff that may – or may not – be unveiled this week.

Keep in mind that all of this happened after investors started dumping US Treasury bonds at a time when these instruments should have been seen as a safe haven; it was during that melee that Trump announced his 90-day pause on the Liberation Day tariffs.

Each of these twists and turns has been chalked up to the supposedly ruthless attempts by America’s friends and foes alike, during many US administrations, to exploit the country.

However, what Trump leaves out is that these decades of alleged scheming by America’s trade partners have clearly failed, considering how much others have envied the US’ economy and technological innovation. The United States’ economic dominance has been in place for so many decades that many people alive today have only known such a reality. Washington has dictated the rules for just as long, enforcing them with the power of its currency.

Shoppers browse at an Apple store in New York, on April 4. Photo: EPA-EFE

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