SANTIAGO, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) — The imposition of tariffs by the United States on its trading partners is a factor of uncertainty at the international level, in a context of transformation of the world economy, said Chilean academic Ignacio Araya.
“The Trump administration adopted a wide-ranging tariff measure. The Supreme Court later overturned that decision, and then the Administration responded by establishing a new general tariff of 10 percent,” the doctor in International Relations from Central China Normal University told Xinhua.
For the expert, Trump’s announcement regarding the establishment of tariffs under another legal basis, hours after the determination of the US Supreme Court, “shows that the trade orientation was not abandoned, but was quickly adjusted after judicial intervention, which makes it difficult to clearly anticipate the stability and continuity of its instruments.”
“It is a sign that the foreign and trade policy of the Trump Government can be reconfigured in short periods of time due to internal dynamics, reducing the ability of international actors to project their trajectory with certainty,” said the professor at the University of Chile.
In his opinion, in the midst of the transformation of the global economy, “this lower predictability introduces an additional component of uncertainty” for countries that trade with the United States.
In his words, in the current scenario, “predictability is not an accessory element, but a central strategic asset for States.”
The US Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s widespread tariffs last year are unconstitutional and that, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), Trump does not have the authority to impose tariffs on imports of goods from nearly all of the United States’ trading partners.
Subsequently, Trump reported that he will advocate for the imposition of tariffs based on another law that allows temporary tariffs to be implemented without the approval of Congress, under the argument that trade is not only related to economic performance, but also to national security.
