BY FELIX

First of all, we need to know who made these tariffs. In case you haven’t heard yet – it was U.S. President Donald Trump.

What are tariffs?

Tariffs are basically percentages of tax you put on a country making them pay more to import (send) items. Now let me explain in more depth that very compact sentence above.

For example, let’s imagine England put a 10% tariff on France. This means that if France sold a taco to England, and it cost France £6.00 then with tariffs France would have to pay £6.60 to get it into England.

The price may seem very small but if France sold England a car for £20,000, with the 10% tariff France would have to pay £22,000 to get it into England.

This is exactly what Trump did. He applied tariffs on any country that sold things to America. And he also put more tariffs on some counties and less on others. The money generated goes to the country imposing the tariffs. Trump has made billion with his tariffs.

To get the JKPS take on Trump’s tariffs I spoke to Laurie in Year 5. I asked him if he thought the tariffs were good and the correct thing to do?

“It really depends on the wealth of the country,” Laurie said. “Some countries really need the money and wealthier nations can pay a bit more for them. But the idea of tariffs is just a waste of time and money. Wealthy countries do need the money too but not as much.”

To me, it bring up the question: Why does America, which is a wealthy country, need the money raised from tariffs?

There is one argument that says America does not need the money because they are already a global superpower and one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But you could also argue that it’s a huge country with millions of inhabitants that the government has to look after. And the rising cost of living and weak global economy is affecting everyone, even rich nations like the USA.

We are going to keep track of this topic and you should tune in every so often so that you will be up to date on this new global situation.