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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
3 times Trump’s tariffs worked | |
Analysis by David Goldman, CNN | |
Updated: | |
5:30 AM EDT, Tue July 1, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
President Donald Trump’s tariffs are designed to boost US | |
manufacturing, restore the balance of trade and fill America’s | |
coffers with tax dollars. The White House’s record on those three | |
goals has been a decidedly mixed bag. | |
But Trump has a fourth way that he likes to use tariffs. Trump has | |
repeatedly threatened tariffs as a kind of anvil dangling over the | |
heads of countries, companies or industries. | |
The subjects of Trump’s tariff threats have, at times, immediately | |
come to the negotiating table. Sometimes, threats just work. | |
Canada | |
The most recent example was over the weekend, when Canada backed off | |
its digital services tax that was set to go into effect Monday. Trump | |
had railed against the tax on online companies, including US | |
corporations that do business in Canada. On Friday, he threatened to | |
end trade talks with America’s northern neighbor. Trump also said he | |
would set a new tariff for Canada by the end of this week. | |
On Sunday, , saying it would drop the tax to help bring the countries | |
back to the table. | |
“To support those negotiations, the Minister of Finance and National | |
Revenue, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, announced today | |
that Canada would rescind the (DST) in anticipation of a mutually | |
beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States,” | |
the Canadian government said in a statement. | |
On Monday, United States and Canada restarted trade discussions. | |
“It’s part of a bigger negotiation,” said Prime Minister Mark | |
Carney in a press conference Monday. “It’s something that we | |
expected, in the broader sense, that would be part of a final deal. | |
We’re making progress toward a final deal.” | |
Colombia | |
Trump’s first tariff action of his second term came against Colombia | |
after President Gustavo Petro in late January blocked US military | |
flights carrying undocumented migrants from landing as part of | |
Trump’s mass deportation effort. | |
In turn, Trump threatened 25% tariffs on Colombian exports that would | |
grow to 50% if the country didn’t accept deportees from the United | |
States. | |
Colombia its refusal and reached an agreement to accept deported | |
migrants. | |
“You can’t go out there and publicly defy us in that way,” a in | |
January. “We’re going to make sure the world knows they can’t get | |
away with being nonserious and deceptive.” | |
Trump ultimately dropped the tariff threat. | |
The European Union | |
Citing a lack of progress in trade negotiations, Trump in late May said | |
he was calling off talks with the European Union and would instead just | |
impose a 50% tariff on . | |
“Our discussions with them are going nowhere!” Trump on May 23. | |
Later that day in the Oval Office, Trump said he was no longer looking | |
for a deal with the EU. | |
But three days later, European Commission President Ursula von der | |
Leyen spoke with Trump and said the EU would fast-track a deal with the | |
United States. Trump then delayed the 50% tariff deadline until July | |
9. | |
Although a deal hasn’t yet come through, Trump’s threat got Europe | |
to get serious, in the White House’s view, on trade, when it had been | |
slow-walking negotiations, trying to get a consensus from its dozens of | |
members. | |
It doesn’t always work | |
The Trump administration attributes a large number of corporate | |
investments in the United State to its tariffs and tariff threats, | |
although it’s often hard to draw a clear line from Trump’s trade | |
policy to a particular company announcing it will build an American | |
factory. Those decisions often take years of planning and are costly | |
processes. | |
For example, shortly after Trump doubled down on steel and aluminum | |
tariffs and included finished products like in the 50% tariff, GE | |
Appliances said it would . The company said it had planned the move | |
before Trump announced the derivative product tariffs – but Trump’s | |
trade war accelerated its plans. | |
In some other cases, Trump’s threats have largely gone nowhere. | |
Furious with Apple CEO Tim Cook for announcing the company would export | |
iPhones to the United States from India – rather than building an | |
iPhone factory in the United States – Trump announced a 25% tariff | |
on all Apple products imported to the United States. He threatened the | |
same against Samsung. | |
But Trump never followed through with his threat, and Apple and Samsung | |
haven’t budged on their insistence that complex smartphone | |
manufacturing just isn’t practical or possible in the United States. | |
Skilled manufacturing labor for that kind of complex work isn’t | |
readily available in the United States – and those who do have those | |
capabilities charge much more to work here than their peers charge in | |
other countries. Complying with Trump’s demands could add thousands | |
of dollars to the cost of a single smartphone – more than Trump’s | |
threatened tariff. | |
Trump similarly in May with a 100% tariff on movies made outside the | |
United States. That left many media executives scratching their heads, | |
trying to figure out what the threat entailed – a threat that | |
ultimately never materialized. The administration later acknowledged | |
Trump’s statement about the tariff was merely a proposal, and it was | |
eager to hear from the industry about how to bring lost production back | |
to Hollywood. | |
Nevertheless, Trump’s threats against the movie industry raised | |
awareness about the bipartisan issue, and California’s Democratic | |
Gov. Gavin Newsom subsequently posted support for a partnership with | |
the Trump administration to incentivize movie and television makers to | |
film in the state again. | |
Trump’s threats don’t always work, and sometimes his tariffs have | |
kicked off a trade war, raising prices in a tit-for-tat tariff | |
escalation. But a handful of times, including this weekend, his tariff | |
threats have gotten America’s trading partners to agree to major | |
concessions. | |
CNN’s Luciana Lopez and Michael Rios contributed to this report. | |
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