For US President Trump, tariffs are a panacea for the economy – but does this calculation work? What exactly are tariffs and what do you do? Answers to the most important questions.
“I love Taiffs” – I love tariffs, Donald Trump had repeatedly emphasized in the election campaign for the US presidency. He recently explained “customs” in addition to “religion” and “love” to one of the three most beautiful words “in the entire dictionary”.
In his view, the United States is ripped off by its trading partners because the imports far exceed exports.
This trade deficit is now to be reduced with the help of new tariffs. However, experts doubt that this calculation will work.
What are tariffs?
The lexicon of the economy describes Zölle as “taxes to the state that must be paid at the transition over the customs border of a country or a customs area”. These tariffs are raised on goods and goods, from car to the wine bottle.
What kind of tariffs are there?
In the current situation, it is mainly about import duties that are due when goods are delivered to a country. For example, VW in the USA would have to pay the increased tariffs for importing a car manufactured in Mexico.
But there are also export tariffs. These are collected by those states from which a goods are exported.
Through tariffs are raised to deliveries that a country only cross and are not sold or used there. An example of this are transit fees for oil or gas that is transported in a pipeline.
Why are there tariffs?
On the one hand, tariffs are a welcome source of income for the state that earns on every delivery from abroad.
In addition, tariffs serve as protection for the domestic economy: domestic production is to be stimulated by importing limits.
High export tariffs, on the other hand, should ensure that certain goods and goods remain in the country. For example, India has raised high export duties on iron ore to prevent supply bottlenecks in the domestic steel industry.
What do customs barriers bring?
Customs play a rather subordinate role in the income of a state. In 2023, the United States took around $ 80 billion of tariffs and fees, which only issued 1.8 percent of the total income of the US government.
For comparison: the EU flowed the equivalent of just over $ 30 billion (28.2 billion euros) in customs fees in the same period.
Damage tariffs of the economy?
Historical examples clearly answer the question with yes. The German Confederation (from 1815) consisted of 39 countries. Goods and goods had to be removed up to 38 times in domestic trade alone.
Waren that were delivered from Hamburg to Austria had to pass ten borders. That made some were unaffected. Only the foundation of the customs association gained relief.
Even in modern times, the answer to customs barriers is free trade. Free trade areas worldwide, such as the EU, the South American economic area Mercosur or Asean in East Asia.
In the meantime, these free trade zones have passed to conclude trade alliance with each other, such as the EU and the Mercosur.
Who pays in the end?
Economists are pretty sure that consumers will ultimately pay the higher tariffs because the producers should try to pass the higher prices.
If this does not succeed, the corporate profits decrease. Both can cost growth and jobs.
Are the United States actually disadvantaged in the trade with the EU?
As early as 2018, the IFO Institute came to the conclusion that the EU tends to be more protected than the United States because it raises average higher tariffs on US goods than vice versa.
However, trading between the two economic areas is more than 5,000 products, all of which are occupied with different customs sets.
Deliveries of some EU products (milk, chocolate, small trucks) are already occupied by up to 20 percent inches, while the EU requires unusually high tariffs for motor vehicles (ten percent), apples and grapes (20 percent).
In total, higher customs payments flow from the EU to the USA than vice versa, because significantly more is also exported to the USA.
