Despite what the mainstream liberal media is saying, tariffs have not put significant upward pressure on consumer prices.
This is the two year anniversary of the beginning of the trade war with China...yet nothing has really changed.
Tori K. Whiting, the Jay Van Andel Trade Economist at the Heritage Foundation’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies said except the taxes that Americans are paying to buy from China.
"Businesses in the United States are being subject to higher prices when they import from China, so they're having to use their existing capital to pay those tariffs. Otherwise, they might have used that capital to hire more workers, invest in expanding their company, or other business growing aspects, rather than just paying their bills," said Whiting.
She's concerned about intellectual property protection in China and restrictions on investments. And, there's definitely signs of weakness in the US economy that can be attributed to the trade dispute with China. She added there are underlying factors in business investment, when US business being subjected to higher prices when they import from China and are having to use existing capital to pay tariffs.
McGowan Group Asset Management, Inc. President & Senior Portfolio Manager Spencer McGowan countered that it's going to take a while to have an effect.
"The salacious headline 'trade wars escalate, Little Xi and Agent Orange battling it out', whether they're right or wrong, the markets have programmed in a sell-response to any negative development," said McGowan.
He said right now, the trading programs of the institutions clearly correlate to two things: trade wars and this week's yield curve inversions.
"GDP growth—in the first quarter we grew over three percent, in the second quarter we grew over two percent. Where is that big recession that the trade wars were supposed to cause? It hadn't happened, yet," said McGowan.
He said the talk of a recession began in the fourth quarter of last year, which was predicated on talks of a trade war, trade disruption and the yield curve was paying less interest on a long bond than a short bond—which is what's happening now, but the recessionary data hasn't shown up, yet—like it did in 2007.