By Kayleb Blanton, Guest Writer

President Trump’s tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada, and the European Union(EU) have the potential to raise prices for Xavier students, according to Xavier economics professor Dr. Hasan Faruq. 

The February tariffs implemented on China include a 10% tariff on all goods, which led China to implement a 15% tariff on coal and natural gas and a 10% tariff on oil and farming equipment. Trump’s reasons for taxing China include protecting American industrial jobs and lowering the debt that the United States owes China over fear that China is trying to steal America’s data and land. Because of this, Trump believes that “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo.”

Trump stated just recently that he plans to implement 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum products, which are expected to take effect on March 12. 

Since our relationship with Canada is already on the rocks, a trade war and increased tariffs may harm our relationship with Canada and could cause a shortage of crude oil and steel, said Xavier professor of economics and economic journalist Dr. Hasan Faruq.

The U.S. implementing tariffs on Canada to prevent the smuggling of fentanyl “is sort of mystifying, especially because the things that Canada has been accused of in terms of undocumented border crossings and in terms of fentanyl if you look at the data, it doesn’t seem like it’s really that high,” Faruq said.

“We have to do everything to avoid this totally unnecessary and stupid tariff war.” Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk said in response to tariffs posed against the European Union.

When the EU prime ministers met on Feb. 7 they proposed to lower the tariffs on car imports from 10% to 2.5% in hopes of lowering possible retaliatory tariffs and offered to buy more natural gas and military equipment. 

Lastly, Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to accept those deported using military planes. In retaliation, Trump instated 25% tariffs applying to all goods, which would be upped to 50% in the first week if Colombia didn’t reverse its decision. Colombia initially responded with equal tariffs – similarly promising to increase to 50%, but very soon after, Colombia backed off and agreed to accept deported Colombians, along with promising them dignified conditions. 

“College students as a group experience among the highest inflation in the US if you look at college tuition, textbooks, coffee, you know, laptops to everything, these tariffs will increase the cost of those things” said Dr. Faruq. 

He said this would include goods sold at Xavier. “Bookshore and T-shirts and everything else, you’ll see most of these products are coming from the countries where tariffs are,” Faruq said. 

Dr. Faruq expects that Americans may be forced to buy lower-quality products due to the increased cost and the decreased competition. He anticipates that our tariff implementation will lose more jobs than gain them and that the markets for complementary products of the goods taxed may be affected in less than predictable ways.