Short term there might be some price hikes but long-term this isn’t going to cost consumers a ton of money. As a job I buy containers full of manufactured stuff from China and since the tariffs have been announced a majority of my vendors have announced that they’re opening new facilities for production or assembly in Vietnam and Taiwan before next year. Labor costs were already becoming an issue in China pushing manufacturing to other nations, this simply accelerated the trend. The US has plenty of options when it comes to countries with low-cost manufacturing whereas China wants to keep that market locked in.
The bigger issue is how this will hurt relations with China. Whether the tariffs are good or bad mostly depends on whether you think that continuing to do business with China only funds their expansionist challenge to the US’ global domination or whether doing business with China keeps them locked as a friendly nation.
More than 60 percent of Dollar Tree’s shoppers – at both the Dollar Tree and Family Dollar chains – have less than $40,000 in annual household income, Philbin wrote in his letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Half of that group earns less than $20,000 a year.
“They truly are among the most vulnerable U.S. consumers,” Philbin said in the letter. At the hearing, he said they depended on the stores’ offerings “to make ends meet.”
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