Trump declares war on the American supply chain

© Americanspirit

The absurdity of Donald Trump’s proposal to levy a 45% tax on Chinese imports and 35% tax on Mexican imports is brutally exposed in this piece from Forbes, showing his glaring misapprehension of how the modern world and international supply chains work. Little wonder that the Economist Intelligence Unit believes that a Trump presidency is in the top ten of risks facing the global economy. Trump’s message to voters is that these taxes would force manufacturing jobs to return to the US, a claim that appear to have little basis in reality. Ford, for example, has 4,000 tier-one suppliers spread across 60 countries; and 10,000 tier-two suppliers. The cost to its supply chain of Trump’s policies would be potentially cataclysmic. “Should Trump win the presidency, every firm in America will need to revisit its business model and examine its supply chain for exposure to massive inflation.”