Recent pause on U.S. and China tariffs

The U.S. and China announced a 90-day pause on most of their recent tariffs on each other. The combined U.S. tariff rate on Chinese imports will be cut to 30% from 145%, while China’s levies on U.S. imports will fall to 10% from 125%.

What does this pause mean? And what will happen when the 90 days is up? Also, how does this up and down tariff war affect consumers and supply chains?

Dale Rogers, professor at W. P. Carey School of Business at ASU, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss more about the tariffs.

“Well, it’s worse tariffs than we’ve had in over 100 years, so it’s gonna crush things. Especially in a time where we’re more dependent. You know we built this global, these global supply chains. We’re more dependent on the outside world than we’ve ever been,” Rogers said.

Rogers gave his insight on what we can expect as a result of the tariffs moving forward.

“The thing is, we really don’t see the effect of the tariffs yet. What I have been telling everybody, I think it’s August before we really see the impact of the tariffs. Might be late July, but it’s August because of just how much stuff we brought in early and then also moving through those inventories,” Rogers said.

However, the impacts have already been felt here in Arizona with importing international goods.

“You know you got local small firms, they’re mostly small firms, here in the Phoenix area. There’s one in Chandler that I’m thinking of right now who sells toys and they haven’t ordered anything and their only factory is in China. And they haven’t ordered anything for two months. And if they order stuff today, which they aren’t going to do, not at 30% because they can’t make money. It’d be a month, month and a half before the stuff gets here,” Rogers said.