Trade wars are good, and easy to win. Really?

A few months ago we wrote, “There is a storm rolling in.”  Well, it’s here.

We are now in a tariff battle with a long list of countries that includes China, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, and India, among others.  Those six countries are among America’s top 10 trading partners, accounting for over 50% of our foreign trade.

“Trade wars are good, and easy to win,” according to President Trump. 

Trade wars are like bar brawls.  Nobody knows who will win.  Things get broken.  Everybody gets hurt.  It takes a long time to clean up.

Economists don’t agree with the President.  An opinion piece published earlier this year in MarketWatch nicely summarizes the opposing viewpoint. 

“It is a standard principle of economics that all individual actors exist within a system, any action taken by one actor will likely result in a response from others.  This means that wise governments, in considering which policies to adopt, must make difficult calculations about how their actions will interact with those of others.  ‘America First’ fails to make these calculations.”

The United States government has just ramped up on uncertainty for US business, and business hates uncertainty.  To paraphrase another senior government official named Donald from over a decade ago, there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.  In my judgement, the known unknowns and unknown unknowns are now dominant.

Bring your key suppliers in and ask them how they are going to be impacted.  Call your top customers, and ask them if how they are impacted.  Draw a map of your supply chain, reaching out at least two levels, and see what it tells you.

Then start loading up the warehouse and keep your fingers crossed.