1/5
Bloomberg: "The scale of the problem is staggering. Trade data released Thursday showed a record $112 billion gap between what China reported exporting to the US and what US Customs said actually arrived last year."
bloomberg.com/news/features/…
2/5
"Put simply," Bloomberg continues, "that suggests that as much as a quarter of what Asia’s top economy shipped to American shores last year slipped under the tariff radar."
3/5
It also suggests why a hodgepodge of sectoral and bilateral tariffs are less efficient than a simple tariff on all imports. While the former mostly shift trade around, the latter is equivalent to a currency devaluation for a country that doesn't intervene in its currency.
4/5
Even better would be a Tobin tax on gross capital inflows along the lines John Hansen has proposed (the market access charge). This would have exactly the same impact on reducing the US trade deficit and supporting...
5/5
US manufacturing as a simple tariff on all imports, except that it would shift the direct cost from consumers to bankers and financial investors (which, of course, is why it would be so hard to implement).
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