US-China trade war: ‘We’re all paying for this’
“I’ve been building my business, and growing it year after year, and then this happened,” says Sherrill Mosee, who is one
of the many who’ve been caught in the crossfire of the US and China tariff war.
She is the founder of handbag and backpack maker MinkeeBlue, which is based in Philadelphia but manufactures its
products in China and then imports them to the US. It is one of a huge range of companies – from shoe makers to chemical
firms and tech suppliers – facing the impact of the bruising trade fight between the world’s two largest economies. Ms
Mosee has seen import tariffs on her products more than double in the last few months.
Both sides have imposed tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of goods, leading to higher costs for business and consumers.
To get her products into the US, that tariff must be paid at the border. Ms Mosee says she’s had to “scramble around to get
the additional funds” to pay the higher duties, including looking for loans.
“As a small business my finances were already a little tight. I had to figure out how I was going to get the money to operate
the business. We’re all paying for this, not [only] China,” she says. Ms Mosee has raised the price of some bags – which are
designed with compartments to carry lots of items like shoes and laptops – by roughly 25% to offset the impact of the higher
import tariff…
• Harrison, V. (2019, August 1). US-China trade war: ‘We’re all paying for this’. BBC.com.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49122849
Required:
Critically evaluate the impact of globalization on businesses in the aftermath of the US-China trade
war and how protectionist policies that the government can apply to mitigate the impact of such conflict
on local economies.
