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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-tariffs-redistribute-wealth-up-food-chain-9.7316144>
“"We will take in trillions and trillions of dollars and create jobs like we
have never seen before," U.S. President Donald Trump told Congress in his state
of the union address in March 2025, one of many forecasts of a new golden age
fuelled by tariffs.
"Because of Tariffs we will be able to start paying down large amounts of the
$21 Trillion in debt that has been accumulated, much by the Obama
Administration, while at the same time reducing taxes for our people," Trump
posted on Twitter back in 2018, during his first term in office.
The jobs haven’t materialized, and this month U.S. government debt blew past
the $40-trillion US mark, causing uneasy rumblings in the bond market and added
pressure keeping yields and interest rates high.
But it’s an ill wind, as the saying goes, and while tariffs have brought stress
and hardship for some, they have brought a windfall for others.
One of the main effects of tariffs within the U.S., economists say, has been to
cause a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the
wealthy and well-connected corporations.
And in that sense, the tariffs fit in with the overall (unstated) economic
thrust of the Trump administration and the Republican Party, which has used tax
policy to achieve the same ends.
"This is consistent with other current trends. Red states in the U.S. are
facing co-ordinated efforts to reduce income taxation and to increase sales
taxes, which would have similar effects," said Veljko Fotak, an associate
professor of finance at the University of Buffalo's School of Management in New
York.
The effect is so strong that some economists have suggested the real target of
tariffs is not "foreign cheaters" at all but rather the principle of
progressive taxation in America.”
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
