Trade War Retaliation Will Hit Trump Voters Hardest

During the lead up to the 2024 presidential election MAGA voters whined constantly about high grocery prices (ignoring the role played by corporate greed) and gasoline prices - it was a convenient way to avoid admitting that it was the Felon's racism, homophobia and general misogynistic behavior was what really attracted their support.  The Felon, of course, promised to lower prices "on day one."  That has not happened and with the trade wars the Felon has launched against Mexico, Canada and much of the world, prices will be increasing rather than decreasing.  Yet much of MAGA world that whined so much about consumer prices under Joe Biden is utterly silent.  As long as the Felon and his accomplices deport brown people, seek to erase transgender individuals and push a white supremacy that puts white, heterosexual, knuckle dragging males at the top of the societal pyramid, concern about high prices seemingly has disappeared from MAGA world's radar.  At some point, however, something will have to give and America's foes - e.g., China - and former allies - Canada and the European Union are targeting their retaliation to the Felon's tariffs to inflict as much pain as possible on states where support for the Felon is high.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the effort to inflict pain on MAGA voters.  Here are highlights:

As President Trump imposes tariffs on products from countries around the world, foreign governments are answering back with tariffs of their own.

China has targeted corn farmers and carmakers. Canada has put tariffs on poultry plants and air-conditioning manufacturers, while Europe will hit American steel mills and slaughter houses.

The retaliatory tariffs are an attempt to put pressure on the president to relent. And they have been carefully designed to hit Mr. Trump where it hurts: Nearly 8 million Americans work in industries targeted by the levies and the majority are Trump voters, a New York Times analysis shows.

The figures underscore the dramatic impact that a trade war could have on American workers, potentially causing Mr. Trump’s economic strategy to backfire. Mr. Trump has argued that tariffs will help boost American jobs. But economists say that retaliatory tariffs can cancel out that effect.

The countermeasures are aimed at industries that employ roughly 7.75 million people across the United States. The bulk of those — 4.48 million — are in counties that voted for Mr. Trump in the last election, compared with 3.26 million jobs in counties that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a calculation by The Times that included examining retaliatory tariffs on more than 4,000 product categories.

The jobs that could be hit by retaliation are especially concentrated in pockets of the upper Midwest, South and Southeast, including many rural parts of the country that are responsible for producing agricultural goods. It also includes areas that produce coal, oil, car parts and other manufactured products.

[O]ther countries had particularly targeted Trump-supporting regions and places where “Trump would like to fashion himself as revitalizing the U.S.” That includes smaller manufacturing communities in states like Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan, as well as southern states like Kentucky and Georgia, he said.

The message foreign countries are trying to send, he said, is, “You think you can bully us, well, we can hurt you too. And by the way, we know where it really matters.”

Retaliation may also mean concentrated pain for some industries, like farming. In Mr. Trump’s first term, American farmers – a strong voting bloc for the president – were targeted by China and other governments, which caused U.S. exports of soybeans and other crops to plummet.

Chinese buyers shifted to purchasing more agricultural goods from nations like Argentina and Brazil instead, and U.S. farmers had a difficult time winning back those contracts in subsequent years. Mr. Trump tried to offset those losses by giving farmers more than $20 billion in payments to compensate for the pain of the trade war.

One analysis published last year by economists at M.I.T., the World Bank and elsewhere found that retaliatory tariffs imposed on the United States during Mr. Trump’s first term had a negative effect on U.S. jobs, outweighing any benefit to employment from Mr. Trump’s tariffs on foreign goods or from the subsidies Mr. Trump provided to those hurt by his trade policies.

The net effect on American employment of U.S. tariffs, foreign tariffs and subsidies “was at best a wash, and it may have been mildly negative,” the economists concluded.

Rural parts of the country are once again at risk from retaliation. Agriculture is a major U.S. export and farmers are politically important to Mr. Trump. And rural counties may have one major employer — like a poultry processing plant — that provides a big share of the county’s jobs, compared with urban or suburban areas that are more diversified.

The retaliatory tariffs target industries employing 9.5 percent of people in Wisconsin, 8.5 percent of people in Indiana and 8.4 percent of people in Iowa. The shares are also relatively high in Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Kansas.

Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro, said that many of the counties affected by retaliation were rural, and “hard red territory.” The geography of Mr. Trump’s political support, he said, was “no secret to our trade partners.”

“They’re very cognizant of these industries, the geography of these industries, and how American politics work,” he added.

I hope MAGA voters enjoy the pain that they have brought on themselves and many others.