Abdullah Al-Haqim 
Since his arrival to the ruling and a second referee began less than two months ago, President Donald Trump has not stopped signing executive orders, or pledging, to impose commercial definitions on his country’s major commercial partners, whether allies, such as Canada, Mexico and the European Union, and competitors, led by China, declaring a trade war in an attempt to redraw international trade rules.
And what Trump is doing to raise customs tariffs in a major disturbance in the financial markets inside and outside America, yet there is a group of factories owners, which closed its doors due to the difficulty of competition with the licenses of Chinese alternatives, that Trump wants to increase his strictness and resort to imposing more customs duties.
Trump postponed the imposition of 35% definitions on both Canada and Mexico to the second of next month, and an additional tariff of 10% on all Chinese imports, and threatened to impose a 200% customs tariff on alcohol products from France and other European countries, and imposed 20% definitions on iron and aluminum imports.
Some countries have taken revenge measures similar to that they imposed customs definitions on American products.
Trump does not leave a chance unless he confirms that “tariffs” is his favorite English word, and that he will not hesitate to impose more of them so that the countries of the world stop exploiting the United States.
Trump has pledged to eliminate the globalization that has been preached and has been spreading the United States in recent decades.
Trump believes that the presence of a deficit or gap in the balance of American trade exchange between the volume of imports and exports necessarily means an American vulnerability, and this is a principle that most economic experts are not necessarily convinced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1jcrhwsnng
A huge American trade deficit
The volume of the American trade deficit with the countries of the world in 2024 amounted to approximately 920 billion dollars, an increase of 17% over the previous year, according to the data of the Federal Statistical Office.
The United States is one of the largest countries in the world of its external trade and only China is outperforming it. Last year, US exports reached 3.2 trillion dollars, and the volume of imports reached $ 4.1 trillion.
The largest commercial gaps with China were (295 billion dollars), followed by the European Union by (235 billion dollars), then Mexico (172 billion dollars), Vietnam (123 billion dollars), then Canada (64 billion dollars).
The performance of the strong dollar, and its high value against most currencies of the countries of the world, prompted an increase in the prices of American products and services, and the high American ability to import, with a relative rise in the prices of American products, which leads to a decrease in the volume of exports.
Car parts, weight loss drugs, electrical appliances, building materials and foodstuffs come at the top of American imports, while America exports many services, cars, weapons, engines, agricultural materials, spare parts and electronic devices.
Trump’s ignorance
Some economic experts believe that Trump’s ignorance of how to calculate the gross domestic product data makes him believe that the trade deficit is a bad thing and Trump believes that state trade transactions are only a zero equation that ends with the victory and loss of the other party.
Contrary to the fact that the basis of international trade means that both parties may win from the exchange process, Trump believes that customs tariffs can be used to restore consideration to his country globally.
Trump ignores the fact that his country, despite its suffering from a huge commercial deficit, is still the most powerful economy in the world because the volume of investment exceeds savings, at a time when countries that have a surplus in the commercial balance retain their money and savings in US dollar bonds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr_hmrcsuig
Trump’s three goals
Trump is not afraid of what his senior assistants repeat that raising customs tariffs will lead to an increase in prices, and believes that this will push for rationalization of consumption and encourage the return of manufacturing to America.
While many observers exclude any of Trump’s goals by reducing the American trade deficit, Trump believes that imposing these fees enables him to achieve several goals, which can be summarized as follows:
- Firstly: The negotiating tool, and Trump believes that imposing definitions is a way to pressure America’s commercial partners, and it is an important bargaining paper. By pressuring customs tariffs, Mexico and Canada moved tens of thousands of their soldiers to secure the borders of the two countries with the United States, and reduce the crossing of irregular migrants and drugs into American territory. In this way, the imposition of sanctions, or the threat of imposing them, contributes to achieving Trump’s non -commercial goals.
- secondly: A punitive tool, and Trump believes that sanctions can be threatened or imposed on any country that is considering going out on the rules of the global banking system, which the US dollar is its dominant currency. Trump warned the state of the Brexes Group, and others who are considering reducing the use of the US dollar in their commercial transactions.
- Third: Finally, Trump believes that imposing sanctions serve his ambitious agenda, which was clearly expressed in his election campaign, which is the basis of a movement to make America a great again (Mag). Among the items of this agenda is the protection of local industries, such as the iron and steel industry, from unfair commercial practices represented in the presence of imported alternatives cheaper than its American counterpart, in addition to encouraging manufacturing within the United States in general, which creates new job opportunities for the popular base for it and the Republicans.
In the end, commercial scales do not reflect the nature of successful or failed economies, and Germany, for example, is a country with a huge trade surplus, but its total economy is heading to decline, and on the contrary the American model that the countries of the world is progressing in the volume of trade deficit at a time when the economy is witnessing significant growth and attributes of very limited unemployment.
