Customs, sanctions, state investments – US President Trump drives up heavy guns in terms of economic policy. He is concerned with more than one strong America. He wants a new economic order.
US President Donald Trump understands what he does and how he does to cause a lot of vertebrae. He spent the goal: “Make America Great Again”, to make America big and strong again.
The pace that he presents could take your breath – especially when you consider that it is not just a better business in the United States, but also about redesigning global trade relationships, according to the Rolf Langhammer economist from the Kiel Institute for World Economy.
“So far – and that was also the case in his first term in his first term – it has always been on the principle, we all lose. But the USA will lose the least,” said Langhammer. “So a kind of negative-sum game. And then I’m the winner.”
Import tariffs and sanctions
To be a winner – important instruments for this are for the American president to impose import duties or sanctions. He uses such means if, for example, states do not behave as they should in his opinion.
India, for example, still buys Russian oil and thus indirectly finances Russia’s war against Ukraine. As a punishment, tariffs are doubled to imports from India to 50 percent. Another example is China. Trump threatens up to 200 percent with punitive tariffs if the Chinese do not reliably supply the United States with rare earths. Rare earths are indispensable for the construction of smartphones, wind turbines or electric cars.
Export restrictions For US corporations
In its part, the United States also impose export restrictions – for example for chips to China. The aim is that the Chinese do not overtake the Americans in technical and technological terms. Such measures in particular take their own industry.
The chip developer Nvidia feels this. The group builds high -performance chips that are used to use artificial intelligence. “For a long time, the export destruction of the White House was valid, so that only inferior goods could be brought to the man there,” said Chris-Oliver Schickentanz from Capitell AG. “In the meantime, you now have the approval again to export the high -performance chips specially designed for the Chinese market.”
For Nvidia, this means one thing above all: great uncertainty. The group has already commented on its own business forecasts.
US government wants to get involved everywhere
Already now it becomes clear that US President Trump is not only to change his own country, but also to destroy the international trading system – i.e. the trade order, as it has worked for decades, through tariffs, sanctions and export restrictions. The expert Langhammer from the Kiel Institute for the global economy speaks of a “fragmented trading market with fragments that only cause costs everywhere”.
And something else is becoming clearer. America was long considered a haven of the free market economy. The influence of the state in companies or institutions was inconceivable or was only admitted in extreme emergencies.
But that is also changing. Now the US government is getting into the battered chip group Intel. The state also wants to get involved in the armaments group Lockheed Martin in the future. Then there is the massive pressure that Trump exerts on the US Federal Reserve because he wants the interest in the USA. The horrendous US debt should remain financially can be affected.
Attacks on the business world
Trump is not exactly squeamish with his attacks. He asked Intel boss Lip Bu-Tan to resign because of its connections to Chinese companies. Apple boss Tim Cook had to listen to criticism because he had iPhones sold abroad in the USA.
Trump also insulted the Goldman Sachs investment bank and demands that the German chief economist Jan Hatzius go. He accuses the money house of having been wrong with a forecast. Trump also terminated the central bank governor Lisa Cook. A US president has never done anything like this.
“Europe has to emancipate itself from America”
The economist Martin Lück observes all of this with concern. “We are talking about the largest economy in the world, we are talking about the largest military power in the world, we also talk about a society that has tremendous soft power.” For decades, the best heads from Europe, from Asia to the United States, had wanted to make a career there, said the expert. “And this society is now imploding.”
The financial markets react. Again and again stock indices all over the world come under pressure. The US dollar has lost value. It is becoming more expensive for the United States to borrow money on the capital market.
The situation could continue to worsen in the coming months if the consequences of Trump’s measures are becoming increasingly clear. For many economists there is only one conclusion: Europe has to emancipate itself from America and concentrate on its own strengths.
