Wikipedia:

U.S. imports decreased 66% from $4.4 billion (1929) to $1.5 billion (1933), and exports decreased 61% from $5.4 billion to $2.1 billion. US gross national product fell from $103.1 billion in 1929 to $75.8 billion in 1931 and bottomed out at $55.6 billion in 1933.

Imports from Europe decreased from a 1929 high of $1.3 billion, to $390 million in 1932. U.S. exports to Europe decreased from $2.3 billion in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade decreased by some 66% between 1929 and 1934.

Marsikaj smo že videli, toda tako bizarnega, psevdoznanstvenega pristopa h kreiranju ekonomskih ukrepov v zahodnih državah se ne spomnim. No, ta Trumpova formula za izračun recipročne bilateralne carine, ki je tako bizarna kot njen promotor osebno, bo šla v zgodovino:

recipročna carina = 0.5 * deficit / uvoz

The formula used by USTR to compute “reciprocal” tariffs is a lil “fancier” than the goods trade surplus of a country vs the US divided by its exports to the US. It also includes in the denominator two elasticity terms, epsilon and phi, whose product is in practice equal to 1. So in practice only (x-m)/m matters for measuring reciprocal tariffs.

But still the entire formula is totally flawed as it assumes that the only fair trade balance is zero. By that standard since the US runs a trade surplus in services other countries should impose a large services reciprocal tariffs against the US to balance that trade too! That reciprocal services tariff against the US should average 28% as the US services surplus was about $280 billion in 2023 relative to US exports of about $1 trillion of such services.

Vir: Nouriel Roubini

Ta kitajska poteza – prepoved investiranja v ameriška podjetja – je potencialno najbolj učinkovit in za ZDA najbolj nevaren protiukrep. Denimo, da se ta ukrep razširi v splošno prepoved kupovanja ameriških vrednostnih papirjev in da temu sledijo ostale države. Če vse države nehajo kupovati ameriške delnice in če nehajo kupovati še ameriške državne obveznice, lahko to zruši ameriške borze in požene ceno zadolževanja za ameriško vlado v nebo.

To lahko pomeni finančni krah za Trumpovo Ameriko.

Prve modelske ocene kažejo, da bo zaradi uvedbe Trumpovih carin, ameriški BDP v vsakem primeru upadel. Samo Kanada in Mehika bi doživeli večji šok od ZDA. S tem, da naj bi ameriški BDP upadel bolj (za 1.4 %), če bodo prizadete države uvedle povračilne carine (v isti višini), kot pa če ne bi reagirale (takrat bi upadel za 0.5 %). Do tega pride, ker bodo carine udarile tudi po uvozu izdelkov, ki jih ameriška podjetja prek različnih aranžmajev proizvajajo širom sveta in nato uvažajo nazaj, zato se bodo ti izdelki podražili in zmanjšala se bo njihova prodaja. Učinek bo ustrezno večji, če druge države uvedejo povračilne ukrepe, ker bodo s tem prizadeti tudi ameriški izvozniki.

Pomembna ugotovitev teh modelskih ocen je, da se EU mora maščevati z uvedbo zaščitnih carin, da bi se izognila upadu BDP. V primeru, da ne bi uvedla povračilnih carin, bi BDP EU upadel za 0.3 %, če pa bi jih uvedla, pa bi to nevtraliziralo šok Trumpovih carin in se BDP ne bi spremenil.

Pomembno je še, da bo zaradi globalne trgovinske vojne, ki jo je sprožil Trump, prizadeto celotno globalno gospodarstvo – globalni BDP naj bi upadel za med 0.26 % (brez povračilnih carin) in 0.43 % (s povračilnimi carinami). To je standardni nauk iz zunanje trgovine – trgovinska vojna je slaba za vse države. In bolj kot se zaostruje in bolj kot se znižuje medsebojna trgovina, večja je škoda (v obliki upada BDP, delovnih mest, koristi za potrošnike itd.). V končni instanci – če pride do popolnega prenehanja trgovanja (avtarkija), nobena država ne more izkoriščati svojih primerjalnih prednosti in se specializirati, zato je splošna učinkovitost gospdarstva nižja.

Toda komu to govorimo? Trump je zadnja oseba, ki bi prisluhnila agumentom.

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We now have a clearer picture of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs and how they will affect other trading nations, including the United States itself.

The US administration claims these tariffs on imports will reduce the US trade deficit and address what it views as unfair and non-reciprocal trade practices. Trump said this would

forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed.

The “reciprocal” tariffs are designed to impose charges on other countries equivalent to half the costs they supposedly inflict on US exporters through tariffs, currency manipulation and non-tariff barriers levied on US goods.

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Najbolj perverzno, in po svoje zabavno, je dejstvo, da bodo Trumpove  carine najbolj prizadele ameriška podjetja. Tista podjetja, ki so pred tremi desetletji v nekončnem profitnem pohlepu začela prenašati proizvodnjo v države z nizko ceno dela in tam organizriale dolge dobaviteljske verige. Domača ameriška industrija je izpuhtela, razvile pa so se industrije v Mehiki, Vietnamu, Kitajski…. No, in zdaj bodo ameriški iPhoni in vsi drugi izdelki, ki prihajajo iz Kitajske načeloma dražji za 20 % + 34 % carine. Ameriška podjetja bodo morala na novo postaviti dobaviteljske verige, da bi se izognila dvigu cen pri uvozu teh izdelkov v Ameriko. To pa pomeni potrebo po novih investicijah in 5 do 10 let prilagajanja.

Pra tako veseli so bili menedžerji največjih ameriških korporacij na Trumpovi inavguraciji…

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Thinking about it, ironically maybe the biggest victims of the Trump tariffs may end up being American companies.

Take Apple for instance. These guys have spent decades building incredibly complex global supply chains that span dozens of countries.

They can’t just flip a switch and move everything back to America. Their supply network represents tens of billions in investment, thousands of supplier relationships, and logistics systems perfected over decades.

Dismantling this overnight is impossible, and building a comparable domestic alternative – which is the stated goal of the Trump tariffs – would take 5-10 years minimum, cost extortionate amounts of money and would increase their product costs considerably.

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A quick thread of charts showing how Trump’s economic agenda is going so far:
1) Trump has had the same impact on economic uncertainty as a global pandemic.

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Andrew Korybko

He’d sacrifice his political career, his envisaged legacy in Ukrainians’ eyes, and part of his country’s economic sovereignty, but he’d avert a much worse scenario than if he rejected this deal.

Trump warned last weekend that Zelensky will have “some problems – big, big problems” if he “tries to back out of the rare earth deal” amidst reports that the latest version of this agreement is very lopsided. It allegedly compels Ukraine to contribute half of its revenue from all resource projects and related infrastructure into a US-controlled investment fund, pay off all US aid from 2022 onward through these means, and give the US the right of first offer on new projects and a veto over resource sales to others.

These tougher terms can be considered punishment for Zelensky picking his infamous fight with Trump and Vance at the White House in late February, but the whole package is being sold to Ukraine as a “security guarantee” from the US. The argument goes that America won’t let Russia threaten these projects, which also include pipelines and ports, thus leading to it at the very least resuming 2023-levels of military-intelligence aid and maybe even directly escalating with Russia to get it into back down.

Ukraine kinda already has such Article 5-like guarantees from the US and other major NATO countries per the bilateral pacts that it clinched with them all throughout last year as explained here, but this proposed arrangement gives the US tangible stakes in deterring or immediately stopping hostilities. The trade-off though is that Ukraine must sacrifice part of its economic sovereignty, which is politically uncomfortable since Zelensky told his compatriots that they’re fighting to preserve its full sovereignty.

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Trump sicer pravi, da je namen uvedbe carin pripeljati proizvodnjo nazaj v Ameriko. Morda bo delno to lahko uspelo (če bodo v ZDA lahko našli dovolj kvalificirane delovne sile). Toda glavni namen je morda nekje drugje.

Isabella Weber ima dobro poanto, da je namen Trumpovih carin lahko predvsem v dvigu carinskih prihodkov. Trumpove carine je zato treba razumeti v konjunkciji z delom Muska v DOGE. Namen Trumpovih carin je morda zelo prozaičen: skrčiti javne izdatke na eni in povečati davčne prilive iz carin na drugi strani, da bi lahko še bolj znižali davke za podjetja in premožne.