President Trump introduces sweeping tariffs, raising uncertainty for businesses, consumers

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- The President announced sweeping tariffs on Wednesday against products from nearly every other nation, stating it would be great for the economy.

The goal, to get companies to bring jobs and production back to America.

"Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years, but it is not going to happen anymore," said President Trump. "This is one of the most important days, in my opinion in US History. Its our declaration of economic independence."

He announced a 10 percent baseline tariff on all countries as well as reciprocal tariffs on roughly 60 countries that he calls the "worst offenders" In some cases at nearly 50 percent.

Action News spoke with UC Merced Associate Professor of Economics Greg Wright immediately after the announcement.

He said that if the tariffs are permanent and the country does succeed in bringing back jobs, there could still be negative effects.

"I think those jobs might be numbered in the thousands if the tariffs remain permanent, and if other countries don't reciprocate to the level that destroys us jobs at the same time," said Wright. "But at the end of the day the sort of price effects that are going to come through because of these tariffs are really just going to make whatever job gains not worth it."

For companies already producing products in and for the U.S., Wright said they would likely respond by raising prices.

That's good for those American businesses but bad for consumers.

"Any sort of rise in tariffs is disproportionately going to impact people who are purchasing products from abroad which tends to be middle and low-income consumers," said Wright. "So across the board, 10%, that's relatively large. Again, it's kind of indiscriminate. And so it's going to be on everything, and that's a lot."

Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Ryan Jacobsen said there's also a lot of uncertainty in Ag. 40% of products grown in California are exported.

"It's not necessarily that we assume that it's going to be all a bad thing for California Agriculture," said Jacobsen. "There is the opportunity that there potentially some countries, some of our trading partners may actually lower tariffs or barriers for some of our products... Potentially there's going to be some losses on the short term, but hopefully for the long term we start to make some in roads and hopefully come out better for it."

The 10% across-the-board tariff is set to go into effect Thursday night. The reciprocal tariffs are set for Tuesday night, however, the president said he is open to negotiations.

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