 Former Congressman Charles Boustany says the trade war with China is failing, and Louisiana taxpayers have paid so far an additional 85-million dollars in additional tariffs, 19-million dollars in October alone. Boustany says the trade war is a hurricane, and we’re starting to feel the first bands of bad economic weather.
“You got a few outer bands that are starting to effect folks, you get a tornado here and there that causes some spotty damage, and then once the thing comes ashore more and more people get hurt.” Boustany, spokesman for Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, says the effects of steel and soybean tariffs have begun to work their way down the economic supply chain from agriculture, to the shipping industries in coastal cities. “Louisiana exports dropped 30 percent in October as a result of retaliation.” Supporters of the tariffs say the economic conflict with China is the best way to force the global superpower to the table, to renegotiate a trade relationship that is growing increasingly imbalanced. But the former southwest Louisiana Republican Congressman says it’s obvious the tariffs are backfiring. “It’s not worth the pain, and since the president imposed the tariffs, the trade balance has gotten worse. Chinese exports are up, and Chinese cyber theft of intellectual property has escalated.” Boustany is advocating a new approach to the Chinese trade deficit, built around assembling a trade coalition to generate better leverage on the far-east superpower. |
