Mariko Oi
Appearances
Global News Podcast
Trump halts military aid to Ukraine
on the Canadian economy, the Mexican economy, the Chinese economy, it will be really, really significant. But at the same time, the impact on the US economy is also something that economists have been warning about as well. But let's start off with Canada and Mexico, because the three countries, they have deeply integrated economies with an estimate of $1.2 billion worth of manufactured goods
Global News Podcast
Trump halts military aid to Ukraine
crossing the borders every day. So you can see the sheer volume, the amount of products that get exported, imported between those countries. So for example, if you look at Mexico, for example, it accounts for nearly 80% of delivery trucks being imported into the United States. As for Canada, it accounts for, of course, about 60% of crude oil.
Global News Podcast
Trump halts military aid to Ukraine
So for Canada, they do actually have a nuclear option of restricting access to energy, but that would be really contentious. So they haven't gone down that road. And Canada has so far announced retaliatory tariffs on certain products that are worth about 100 billion US dollars. China has also announced the retargeting measures.
Global News Podcast
Trump halts military aid to Ukraine
But for China, of course, they already had the 10% tariff earlier last month, and that has basically been doubled. So it's now 20% tariffs on everything that gets imported from China into the United States. Thank you very much. would be quite significant. But let's also not forget about the US economy, because these tariffs would likely push up prices of products being sold in the United States.
Global News Podcast
Trump halts military aid to Ukraine
And that would feed into that cost of living crisis that we've been talking about. And inflation has calmed down a bit, but this could actually feed back into inflation, though Mr. Trump has so far shrugged off the potential damages to the US economy.
Global News Podcast
Trump halts military aid to Ukraine
I think that is what investors are worried about. And that's why even before these latest tariffs kicked in at about five o'clock GMT, which was midnight in the US time, when Mr. Trump said that these tariffs would go ahead, because of course, remember, those tariffs on Mexico and Canada, they were kind of put on hold while they negotiated all these deals.
Global News Podcast
Trump halts military aid to Ukraine
But when Mr Trump said that these tariffs would kick in, we saw US shares falling. And then when those tariffs kicked in, we saw an impact on the Asian markets, which were trading at the time. And of course, we're going to start seeing some impact on the European market as well.
Global News Podcast
Trump halts military aid to Ukraine
And that is all because investors are worried, as you said, about the global trade war, which would impact, of course, the US economy, and that would, of course, impact the rest of the world. And it's just not something that investors wanted to hear about, because China has repeatedly said that they didn't want a trade war, because in their words, nobody wins a trade war.
Global News Podcast
Trump halts military aid to Ukraine
But of course, Mr. Trump sees tariffs as a negotiating tool, and that's what he's going ahead with.
Global News Podcast
China hits back against US tariffs
At first, when we woke up, things looked a bit better because Mexico and Canada, the tariffs that the US were going to impose on those two countries, they managed to delay it at least by a month. So as a result, we started seeing US stock markets making a bit of a comeback. So ending the day slightly lower, but at least making a bit of a recovery. And then Asian markets reopened higher.
Global News Podcast
China hits back against US tariffs
They haven't exactly recovered all the losses from the day before. But at least it looked like a much better day. Then came 5 GMT. So that was around lunchtime Asia time. US hit China with new tariffs, the 10% tariffs that they've been threatening. And of course, this is on top of the slew of tariffs that Mr. Trump announced during the first term. And I think investors were
Global News Podcast
China hits back against US tariffs
Initially, wondering whether there could be some kind of a deal like Mexico and Canada, but then the deadline passed. And then boom, China hit back with its own retiree tariffs. So suddenly, we started seeing reaction in the stock markets in Asia, I have to say, it wasn't too bad. Japan's Nikkei ending the day.
Global News Podcast
China hits back against US tariffs
Slightly higher, and Hong Kong's Hansen Index has actually done quite well as well, whereas the Chinese stock market, the mainland Chinese stock market, remained closed because of the Chinese New Year holiday.
Global News Podcast
China hits back against US tariffs
So we did see a bit of a reaction, but not as bad as yesterday, but definitely in terms of the tension, trade war tensions, especially between the two biggest economies in the world, that has certainly escalated.
Global News Podcast
China hits back against US tariffs
Yes, I think it's fair to say that investors are bracing for that. When it comes to Mexico and Canada, it was interesting that we were actually having a discussion in the newsroom as well. What did actually the Trump administration get from Mexico and Canada in order to delay this tariff? Because a lot of the measures were already in place, but it was kind of emphasis that they are working on it.
Global News Podcast
China hits back against US tariffs
And that guarantee has managed to win them that delay of 30 days.
Global News Podcast
Dozens killed in clashes in Syria
These latest data are from the first two months of this year, so January and February. So one can argue that it could just be a blip. But still, imports falling by almost 8.5%. That is a lot worse than many economists had expected. They were actually expecting a growth of 1%. So I was looking at what they were buying less of and saying,
Global News Podcast
Dozens killed in clashes in Syria
It's things like crude oil, natural gas, other commodities like copper and iron ore. While interestingly, they're still importing more coal and soybeans. So it might be that demand in the world's second biggest economy is really slowing down. Also, it's interesting to note that exports grew by a lot less than what economists had anticipated.
Global News Podcast
Dozens killed in clashes in Syria
Now, one can argue that economists just got it all wrong. But still, it is quite worrying because, as you said, the economy, the Chinese economy is facing many other challenges, not to mention this intensifying trade war with the United States.
Global News Podcast
Dozens killed in clashes in Syria
Yes, absolutely. We've been talking about that ongoing property sector crisis for many years now. Basically, the sector has a huge debt. And as a result, a lot of the developers have defaulted. The Chinese government has been trying to restructure the sector, but that hasn't really worked out just yet. And that's kind of spread into how people feel about it.
Global News Podcast
Dozens killed in clashes in Syria
So consumers haven't been spending a lot of money because they don't feel too confident about the economy. And also, the very high, especially youth unemployment rate has been noticed as well by many economists. So there have been many, many issues that are facing the Chinese economy. And then here comes a tariff.
Global News Podcast
Dozens killed in clashes in Syria
So it's really interesting that just yesterday, the Chinese leaders have unveiled that they're at around 5% this year. And that's practically the same goal that they had for last year. And they just managed to hit that last year after pumping in billions of dollars into the economy to stimulate the economy.
Global News Podcast
Dozens killed in clashes in Syria
So you know, with all these additional challenges, it will be quite a huge task for Beijing to actually achieve that target.
Global News Podcast
Dozens killed in clashes in Syria
Well, I think it's fair to assume that they will probably announce even more stimulus measures. You know, they have been announcing quite a lot of them, but many economists and especially investors haven't been too happy with them, that they've been saying that Beijing needs to do more, something more radical to try and boost the economy.