Will The Trump Administration Issue A New Tariff Policy And Can The US Retail Industry Survive?

In the face of the threat posed by a new round of tariff imposed by the Trump administration, how should the US retail business deal with it?

According to the monthly global port tracking report jointly released by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett consultants (HackettAssociates), the import volume of major US retail container ports in August is expected to remain high in the rest of this month and the rest of the year.

More urgent, the US retail industry will soon prepare for the holiday shopping season: for American retailers, the busiest import season is from eight to October.

"These three months are for holiday preparation." NRF, senior vice president of government relations at Frantz (DavidFrench), pointed out that consumers will feel the price rise very quickly.

Zhou Shijian, a senior researcher at Tsinghua University's Sino US Relations Research Center, who worked for many years at the Chinese Embassy in the United States, told the first financial reporter that at present, the United States is inseparable from China's manufacturing of daily goods: "take shoes as an example, at present, 60% of the shoes in the US market are imported from China."

　　 Forcing consumers to buy American goods is not realistic.

According to the "global port tracking report", the US main ports covered by the database imported 1 million 800 thousand TEU (standard box) in June. At present, it is estimated that the data in July are 1 million 860 thousand TEU; August is estimated to be 1 million 910 thousand TEU; September 1 million 850 thousand TEU; October 1 million 910 thousand TEU; November 1 million 840 thousand TEU; November 1 million 810 thousand TEU.

Jonathan Kim, vice president of NRF supply chain and customs policy, explains that even if almost all related (retail) imports are subject to tariffs, retailers will not change the supply chain quickly or easily, which means that American families will eventually pay more for the goods they can not get away from. "JonathanGold" It's time to stop punishing American businesses, workers and families.

Zhou Shijian pointed out that the retail industry in the United States is heavily dependent on foreign imports. In China, for example, 2/3 of China's exports to the United States are consumer goods.

Among them, toys accounted for 86% of China's imports from the United States, 61% of travel bags, 60% of footwear, 44% of furniture, 37% of textiles and clothing, 27.1% of mechanical and electrical products, and 94% of laptop and tablet computers, 40% of digital cameras and 27% of household color TV.

Zhou Shijian, who had done statistics on the business office of the Embassy in the United States, told the first financial reporter that the United States now basically has no domestic leather shoes. The American leather shoes in the United States market were 22 pairs per capita in 1986, 96 years down to 11 pairs, and in 2006 dropped to 1 and a half.

For example, more than 90% of laptops come from China, and American newspapers have reported a rise of US $125 each. After graduating from US university students in June, they all need to buy notebook computers. Price increases need to be fermented for a period of time among consumers. Zhou Shijian said.

Earlier, President Trump announced a new version of the "US made" executive order in July 16th, demanding that the federal government departments consider revising the 10582 decree signed by former US President Eisenhower in 1954 and upgrading the relevant rules of "buy American goods" again.

Zhou Shijian told the first financial reporter that such an idea is not realistic, and the result is that American consumers pay for it.

Such actions as "buy American goods" against economic globalization can not be done at all. Zhou Shijian told the first financial reporter that after the Second World War, the United States adjusted the labor intensive industry through three industrial adjustments. Now, how can it be possible to move back?

It is true that NRF had calculated that the US taxpayers had paid more than $27 billion in additional import duties since the Trump Administration introduced tariff threats in 2018 to June this year. If tariffs are added, American consumers spend more than 12 billion 200 million dollars a year, of which American consumers spend more than 4 billion 400 million dollars on clothes, spend more than 2 billion 500 million dollars on shoes, spend 3 billion 700 million dollars on toys, and spend 1 billion 600 million dollars on household appliances.

Francois pointed out that it is impossible to transfer all purchases in the retail industry. In the short term, retailers will have to continue to use the original suppliers and transfer higher costs to consumers.

The USFIA also estimates that tariffs will allow American consumers to spend more than 4 billion 900 million dollars a year on clothing, to an average of four families, that is to spend more than 60 dollars a year.

　　 Poor retail performance forced layoffs

With regard to tariffs, American retailers have issued a collective warning that a new round of tariff increases may accelerate layoffs in the most depressed industry. Hughes, President of the USFIA, said: "for those companies that are unstable, this (Guan Shui) will only push them to the edge of the JuliaHughes".

GaryWakley, senior vice president of footwear procurement at Fila, a sportswear company, says American workers will be the first to receive unemployment notices.

"Our company will face tough decisions, including layoffs and closes," said WadeMiquelon, chief executive of fabric and crafts chain store Jo-Ann, CEO.

At present, the employment of American retailers has begun to shrink under the impact of the electricity supplier: data released by the Federal Reserve and the US Labor Bureau in August showed that the number of employed persons in the US retail industry in July 2019 decreased by 49 thousand compared with that in July 2017. Among them, department stores, clothing chains and electronic parts shop are the first to bear the brunt. If it is not for grocery stores and car dealers to increase recruitment, the number of presidents will be even more severe.

The retail industry in the United States has become the mainstream industry in the United States for the first time in which the volume of employment has been greatly reduced. In fact, in addition to the employment changes in the public sector, all other major economic sectors in the United States have increased employment in the past two years. Among them, transportation and warehousing related to electricity providers has increased about 370 thousand jobs since July 2017. From the professional service industry to the medical and health care industry, people continued to open their recruitment doors last month.

In contrast, according to the latest job market data, the number of retail jobs in July decreased by 3600 seasonally. Within the retail sector, department stores and electronic appliance stores cut 3700 and 5700 jobs respectively. Luckily, the increase in the number of grocery stores has buffered the impact of online shopping on the number of presidents.

It is worth noting that after the latest US tariff threat, the stock of several of the world's largest retailers, including BestBuy, Gap and Messi stores, continued to fall sharply. This year, US retailers failed to perform well in the US stock market and failed to win the S & P 500 index.