One of the hottest political topics currently talked about is tariffs. A tariff is defined as a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports. On April 5, 2025 President Donald Trump imposed a 10% tariff on items from all countries. Though, on April 9, 2025, higher tariffs were imposed on countries that hold large trade deficits though all other countries will continue to stay at the 10% tariffs. While many citizens find tariffs to be annoying ways to bring prices up, tariffs actually hold an important part in protecting the country. According to the White House website, “President Trump refuses to let the United States be taken advantage of and believes that tariffs are necessary to ensure fair trade, protect American workers, and reduce the trade deficit—this is an emergency.”
“The idea behind all this is we bring business back here, we become more of a manufacturing economy again, as opposed to just the knowledge economy we’ve become. We do export a lot, but it’s usually in the form of agriculture, because we got a lot of land and then, cancer research, Alzheimer’s research, medical devices, banking technology, were the idea economy, and the idea is to manufacture more here,” said history teacher Lauren Schoellhorn.
By imposing the tariffs, the US can rely more on itself rather than other countries. Look at the tags of your clothes. Most often it is made in China, Vietnam, India, or Cambodia. Many clothes are made there since labor is so much cheaper in those countries. Multiple companies such as Apple and Tesla build factories so that they can pay their workers less and which in effect makes their product cheaper.
There are also major online shopping sites like Shein and Temu which are popular due to their extremely low prices but cheap quality, that will have a large price increase due to the tariffs. Both companies manufacture in China and ship mainly to Europe and the US. With US citizens being their primary market, companies like Shein and Temp will highly suffer due to the imposed tariffs, especially since neither sites are known for having high quality goods. Even businesses that manufacture in the US will take a hit, especially small businesses.
“I was listening to a story about a woman who makes bags. She makes them in America, but all of her product to make it comes from other countries, so that’s going to be more expensive for her to buy her products, and then she has to pass the prices off to her customers to pay that tax. And then, nobody’s going to buy that, because it’s more expensive,” said Schoellhorn.
US citizens use more large corporations like Walmart, Target, and Amazon which already affects the wellbeing of small businesses but with the new tariffs will only make them more susceptible to going under. In addition, many small businesses have only recently or are still recovering from the COVID-19 lockdown. Consequently, the tariffs could affect many small businesses by causing them to have less revenue or even having to close down all completely. Yet, prices don’t just go up because of tariffs.
“There’s also people who will panic buy. They’ll start going into places and thinking that everything is too expensive and that they won’t be able to afford it later, so you’ll see shelves start to clear. Take baby formula. People are going and grabbing that off the shelves, and then nobody has access to it, and then the price goes up because there’s less of it,” said Schoellhorn
Panic buying and selling is a large issue when it comes to the economy. Many remember during Covid, that toilet paper was constantly out of stock and the prices went up because people were scared they wouldn’t be able to purchase it anymore. That is exactly what panic buying is. It can also apply to the stock market. People will panic sell stock because they think the value will go down, causing the stock market to fluctuate and creating more panic for everyone else. This is currently happening with Apple stock. Since Apple’s main factories are in China people worry that nobody is going to be buying Apple products and have been panic selling their Apple stocks. All the panic just happens because of even the possibility of tariffs.
Though putting tariffs down in the US affects not just US citizens but citizens from countries around the world. In return for the US imposing tariffs, other countries like China begin to impose tariffs on US goods entering their country. This creates a decline in money coming into the US economy just like how putting the US tariffs on imported goods affects the country the goods are coming from.
Tariffs, while annoying, are important to many countries’ national security and protection of the countries. They will raise the price of many consumer goods and foods like avocados and bananas that are grown in other places because they don’t grow well in the US. Tariffs may go up basing off if they go well during their time at 10% but they could also go down. They are all based on our economy’s situation and how much manufacturing is going on in the US.
“People can use the economy as a weapon. So if you’re depending on another country for something, then your national security is threatened. Especially, if that place has so much access here, or so much influence here,” said Schoellhorn.
