Yesterday President Donald Trump tweeted that from September 1st his administration would apply tariffs of 10% on $300bn of imported goods from China. That means that most Chinese products will be covered. The overall impact of the new tariffs is uncertain, though probably negative. Isolating the mechanical impact of the last tariff increase is tricky—it happened too recently to have filtered fully into prices. But Mr Trump’s tariff threats do seem to be dampening business confidence. So far the tariffs have mainly fallen on the parts and components used by companies. The next batch will cover things like clothes and consumer electronics, which consumers will find it harder to hide from. Businesses can try to pull in products ahead of the tariff increase, although they do not have much time. But one thing looks clear. The US-China trade relationship is not going to improve any time soon.
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