Coronavirus Finally Gets Trump To Admit Americans Pay His Tariffs – By Eric Boehm (Reason) / April 20 2020
The White House announced a temporary suspension of tariff payments as a way to stimulate the American economy, but the relief will not apply to tariffs on steel, aluminum, or imports from China.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Saturday that will provide some temporary relief from tariffs for some American businesses—but the order will not apply to tariffs imposed by Trump himself on imported steel, aluminum, or goods from China.
Even the businesses that could benefit from the change will have to find time to fill out additional paperwork before they get any relief. In a statement released Sunday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) explained that “this payment flexibility will be available only for importers with significant financial hardship.” As with so much of the Trump administration’s trade policy, it appears this relief will be contingent on federal bureaucrats picking winners and losers.
Even though its scope seems limited, the new tariff policy is roughly akin to the Trump administration’s earlier move to defer the federal income tax deadline from April 15 to July 15: People and businesses will still have to pay, but the delay will keep additional liquidity in the market. It would be better to lift those tariffs permanently, of course, but even a 90-day delay in payments will provide some flexibility to businesses currently facing a coronavirus-induced cash crunch.
“Any tariff relief is good news, but the benefits of this short-term deferral of duties are limited,” says Bryan Riley, director of the free trade initiative at the fiscally conservative National Taxpayers Union Foundation. “At least the executive order seems to acknowledge the reality that tariffs are paid by Americans, not by China or anyone else.”
Coming from the Trump White House, which has insisted for years that tariffs aren’t paid by Americans but that they somehow function as a tax on foreign producers, this is a confusing stance. On one hand, lifting some tariffs as a form of economic stimulus—even if only on a temporary basis—is a welcome sign, and an acknowledgment that it is indeed Americans who pay the cost of those import duties.
On the other hand, if lifting some tariffs is good for American business, why not lift all of them? Trump doesn’t seriously believe that the tariffs he’s imposed on steel, aluminum, and Chinese imports are magically not paid by Americans too, right? But that’s exactly what his latest galaxy brain trade maneuver seems to suggest.
Continue to article: https://reason.com/2020/04/20/coronavirus-finally-gets-trump-to-admit-americans-pay-his-tariffs/
