President Donald Trump has flirted with implementing sweeping international tariffs for months. His latest plan includes enacting at least a 10% tariff on all counties starting August 1st.
Economics experts are saying those tariffs could have significant short-term impacts on Florida and its residents.
Randall Holcombe, an economics professor at Florida State University, worries Trump's plan will lead to rising costs for Floridians.
"Tariffs essentially, it's a tax on American consumers, and it's politically motivated by companies, domestic companies who want protection from foreign competition," he said. "The same thing applies to foreign countries. They'll put tariffs on American goods because the foreign manufacturers don't want American competition in their domestic markets."
Florida TaxWatch, a Tallahassee-based taxpayer research institute, recently released a report that found tariffs could impact costs across products in Florida. They project the price of new cars could go up at least $6,000 - $7,000. Grocery bills could go up 10 to 15%.
Dominic Calabro, the group's CEO, expects Trump's plan to have a significant short-term impact in the state.
"Florida as the 10th largest importer of the 50 states in the United States of America, (imports) $117 billion, essentially the size of our state budget," he said.
Holcombe agrees Florida will be heavily impacted, but he believes other states could see even bigger effects. He points to regions that have large manufacturing industries that rely on imported raw materials.
"If you were Michigan, and you're importing a lot of auto parts for your factories, that's going to have a bigger impact, but in Florida, we don't really have that issue," he said.
The Trump administration has frequently mentioned that other countries impose tariffs on American goods. Holcombe said in those cases, the tariffs are typically targeted on specific industries and are historically there to boost manufacturing in those countries.
"Go back to the days after World War II, manufacturing was decimated in Europe, in Japan, those economies were trying to rebuild," he said. "As part of the rebuilding, they erected protective tariffs to protect domestic industries from American competition, and those tariffs have tended to remain in place."
Trump has said his goal is to use the tariffs to bring back more domestic manufacturing. And Calabro said he believes Trump's plan could work.
"His electoral win was those, those in the middle class, in hard working industries that we're going to get initially impacted negatively by high tariffs on imports, but I think he's going to work hard to turn that around. So, it's working towards their benefit and the benefit of all Americans," he said.
Holcombe thinks tariffs are the wrong move.
"Regardless of what foreign countries do, that we're better off in the United States if we reduce our tariffs, because those tariffs are a tax on American consumers. So, the best thing we can do for American consumers is make goods and services as affordable as possible," he said.
Whether the president will move forward with his current plan remains to be seen.
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