Jimmy Kimmel has hit out at Donald Trump after the president announced massive new taxes on Chinese imports.
The TV host, 57, addressed the trade tariff war on his program, Jimmy Kimmel Live, saying that Trump appeared to be announcing new numbers as if he was "working a bingo hopper." The initial tariffs were 20% but the president quickly upped the ante with China, raising the levy to 54% to offset what he said were China's unfair trade practices.
But then, enraged when China retaliated with tariffs of its own, he upped the levies to a staggering 145 per cent. "Trump's all over the place," Jimmy said during his monologue on his show. Look at China. Over the past 48 hours, the tariffs he put on China have gone from 20% to 104% to now, he says, at least 145%.
"He's calling out numbers like he's working a bingo hopper or something! There's no plan - unless you consult the MAGA-verse, in which case there is. There is and was definitely a plan."
The show then played some clips of Trump officials and supporters saying that the president was planning to pause reciprocal tariffs from the beginning, before Jimmy said, "Well, if that was the plan, congratulations because in one week, the plan lost $6 trillion and every country in the world hates us now. None of us can ever go on vacation again thanks to the plan. That's some plan."
The new tariffs may be the end of an era of of inexpensive consumer goods in America. For four decades, and especially since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, Americans have relied on Chinese factories for everything from smartphones to Christmas ornaments.
As tensions between the world's two biggest economies and geopolitical rivals have risen over the past decade, Mexico and Canada have supplanted China as America's top source of imported goods and services. But China is still No. 3 — second behind Mexico in goods alone — and continues to dominate in many categories.
China produces 97% of America's imported baby carriages, 96% of its artificial flowers and umbrellas, 95% of its fireworks, 93% of its children's coloring books and 90% of its combs, according to a report from the Macquarie investment bank. Over the years, American companies have set up supply chains that depend on thousands of Chinese factories, with low tariffs greasing the system. As recently as January 2018, US tariffs on China averaged just over 3%, according to Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
"American consumers created China," said Joe Jurken, founder of the ABC Group in Milwaukee, which helps US businesses manage supply chains in Asia. "American buyers, the consumers, got addicted to cheap pricing. And the brands and the retailers got addicted to the ease of buying from China."
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David French, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Retail Foundation, warned that the US could face "apocalyptic" consequences due to the tariffs. The Yale University Budget Lab estimates that the tariffs that Trump has announced globally since taking office would lower US economic growth by 1.1 percentage points in 2025.
They are also likely to push up prices, with the University of Michigan's survey of consumer sentiment finding that Americans expect long-term inflation to reach 4.4%, up from 4.1% last month. "Inflation's going up in the United States," said Stephen Roach, former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and now at Yale Law School's China Center. "Consumers have figured this out as well."
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