Marketable: The split over Trump's trade policy is intensifying in the United States
In the United States, there is a growing split in views on President Donald Trump's trade policy. Republicans are now joining the congressional votes for the abolition of duties for Washington's partners. Meanwhile, the American leader is gradually starting to reduce tariffs by concluding deals with other countries — Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand and Cambodia have already been granted concessions. Experts note that the policy has proved effective in achieving short-term goals and for manipulation, but in the long run it threatens economic difficulties for the States. What several months of trade wars have led to is in the Izvestia article.
Why is Trump starting to abolish trade duties
Donald Trump began his second presidential term with an unprecedented escalation of protectionist policies, making customs duties a central tool of the foreign and domestic agenda. The United States managed to become the richest country in the world after the start of the tariff policy, the American president said earlier. According to Trump's calculations, the revenue from the imposition of duties will amount to $1 trillion per year.
Nevertheless, there was no consensus within the United States about the effectiveness of such an aggressive trade policy. In particular, this is evidenced by the position of the Congress. Recently, the Senate supported a bill to abolish 50% of duties on Brazil. Later, his majority voted for a bipartisan resolution that would block the president's decision on tariffs against a close ally, Canada. Then the Senate (and there were both Democratic and Republican votes) voted for the complete abolition of tariffs against more than 100 countries.
— The Democrats are united in their opposition, and the Republicans are beginning to feel the pressure. The Senate's vote on the abolition of duties was more symbolic than real. The House of Representatives is still too scared to join the Republican resistance to Trump's irrational and destructive economic policies, but that will change as their constituents increasingly express outrage, American political analyst Peter Kuznik told Izvestia.
US President Donald Trump
It is not entirely clear how much this pressure affects Trump, but nevertheless, several news reports have appeared recently about the lifting or easing of duties for a number of American trading partners. The trip of the American president to Asia to participate in the ASEAN and APEC meetings was productive in this regard.
Thus, the leadership of South Korea managed to achieve certain agreements with Donald Trump. The parties agreed on a memorandum of understanding: Seoul promised to invest $200 billion in the American economy and another $150 billion in joint shipbuilding projects. In exchange, Washington gave a guarantee to reduce duties on South Korean cars from 25% to 15%.
In exchange for signing a peace agreement with the mediation of Donald Trump, Thailand and Cambodia managed to obtain certain concessions.
Surprisingly, the main geopolitical and economic rival of the United States, China, has also managed to achieve progress in the American direction. Following the meeting with Xi Jinping, Donald Trump announced a 10% reduction in duties to 47%. The United States is also ready to lift restrictions on the supply of products from some Chinese companies and significantly weaken controls on semiconductor exports to China. In turn, Beijing should increase purchases of soybeans, as well as lift export controls on rare earth metals and help combat the production of fentanyl — according to Trump, drug trafficking comes from China.
Japan succeeded in reducing duties during the same period. The White House lowered tariffs on their cars from 27.5% to 15% in exchange for a cooperation agreement that should guarantee the supply of rare earths and other key resources to the United States.
The tariff policy has proved effective in reaching trade agreements with other countries, experts interviewed by Izvestia believe.
— The threat of excessive duties creates the basis for future negotiations with trading partners, and the United States finds itself in a more advantageous position. At the same time, the initial statements essentially serve as a warning to economies that are still trying to build their trade relations with the United States. Nevertheless, its duties slow down the development of the global economy, because they close the opportunities for equal participation of all countries in world trade," says Ekaterina Novikova, Associate Professor of the Department of Economic Theory at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.
The real economic effect of Trump's tariffs
Contrary to expectations, trade duties have not yet had the desired effect on the American economy. Many key sectors are suffering from the consequences, while the population is suffering from high prices and rising inflation, American expert Jeremy Kuzmarov draws the attention of Izvestia. However, global indicators are not so pessimistic.
— Inflation in the United States jumped slightly, by 0.3–0.5 percentage points year-on-year, but this effect turned out to be weaker than expected in April. The main reason is that duties accelerated the introduction of new technologies — businesses began to save money, and retail chains began to actively use more economical sales channels. The U.S. government received revenue from duties in the amount of about $30 billion per month for the period from May to October. Nevertheless, Trump incorrectly indicated that tariffs would lead to a reduction in the trade deficit," said Yuri Ichkitidze, macroeconomist at Freedom Finance Global.
As for the global economy as a whole, it turned out to be quite resistant to American duties. The forecasts of international financial organizations for this year have improved compared to April and remain cautious for 2026, emphasizes Olga Belenkaya, Head of the Macroeconomic Analysis Department at Finam
— In October, for the second time in a row, the IMF raised its forecast for global economic growth for this year to 3.2%, by 0.2 percentage points compared to the July forecast and by 0.4 percentage points compared to April, as well as the new forecast for 2026 (to 3.1%) by 0.1 percentage points higher than in April. However, both forecasts suggest a slowdown in growth compared to 2024 (3.3%), not to mention the average growth rate before the pandemic (3.7%), the expert explains.
In particular, the global economy has proved resilient due to the flexible actions of the private sector (this includes faster supply growth in the first half of 2025 and the reorganization of their chains), the achievement of US trade agreements with major trading partners, adaptive financial conditions (the weakening of the dollar against world currencies), and a boom in investments in artificial intelligence.
However, the IMF warns, says Belenkaya, that the effect of tariff increases has yet to be translated into higher consumer prices, which may reduce the efficiency of the economy due to increased costs. The IMF expects economic growth to slow down in the second half of 2025 and only partially recover in 2026, with risks shifting towards a worsening situation.
The economies of individual countries were helped to cope with the effect of sanctions, among other things, by the reorientation of supplies to other markets.
— Today we are talking about the regionalization of the global economy and the expansion of trade and economic associations such as BRICS. For the same reason, the process of de—dollarization of the global economy and the transition of countries to bilateral settlements bypassing the US dollar is underway," Ekaterina Novikova believes.
So far, the duties have enabled the United States to develop its market, while other states are uniting into regional trade centers, which in the future may cause some damage to the States and American companies, given the country's increasing public debt. By the end of October, it had reached $38 trillion for the first time.
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