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11/25/2020What Is A Tariff; Who Pays Tariffs, And What Are Their Impacts?
What is a tariff, what is its purpose and who pays? Key questions as President-elect Joe Biden inherits President Trump's China tariffs and China trade war.www.investors.com
Who Pays A Tariff?
...U.S. importers pay the bill for tariffs on goods imported into the U.S., but the question of who ultimately pays the tariff cost is more complicated.
When President Trump imposed tariffs of 10% on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports in September 2018, Walmart (WMT) and other retailers said the tariffs would result in some combination of higher prices or lower profits.
Bicycles built in China were among the products on Trump's tariff list. A 10% tariff on a bike with a wholesale cost of $60 would add $6 to Walmart's cost of importing that bike.
Walmart could pay $3 of the $6 cost and pass half of it on to customers, whose price would rise by $3. In that case, Walmart profit shrinks and customers are left with a thinner wallet.
The company exporting the bike also could share in the pain. Walmart could demand its supplier lower the price or lose the massive retailer's business.
Still another possible way to offset the hit to business profits and consumer wallets is through currency adjustment. If Chinese goods cost American importers less because of a stronger dollar, the cost of Trump's China tariffs wouldn't bite. Yet the yuan, after initially depreciating about 10% as China's economy slowed under the weight of tariffs, has since recovered the bulk of that decline.
On May 10, 2019, Trump proceeded to hike 10% tariffs to 25% on that $200 billion tranche of imports that included bicycles.
Consumers Didn't Pay China Tariff Costs
Even still, New York Fed researchers found that import prices from China, without the tariff on top, fell only 2% from June 2018 to September 2019 as tariffs ramped up. An October 2019 paper from researchers at Harvard, the Boston Fed and the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business found that major retailers imposed just a 0.7% price increase on products subject to a 20% tariff.
Bottom line: If end consumer prices and import prices were little changed, that means American importers have borne almost all of the cost of the tariffs. However, those importers may have sought to shift some imports to other countries that weren't subject to tariffs...
I can't believe the known liar lied!