Jacksonville, Fla —
WOKV political analyst and Executive Director of the Jacksonville University Public Policy Institute Rick Mullaney says President Trump’s tariffs are very risky both politically and economically.
“He’s trying to sell it that it’s going to increase US manufacturing and it’s going to save jobs, and all will be well during the long run. However, that is, and this is an area in which the President has a great deal of conviction. He’s been a believer in tariffs for a long time, but being very objective about it, there are many, many who simply disagree with him economically. And we’ll have to wait and see politically, it is clearly disruptive. It is very risky politically, and very risky economically. He mentioned, for example, reciprocal tariffs. But this isn’t simply reciprocal tariffs. This is 10% tariffs across the board for 185 countries”.
Mullaney says even if President Trump is correct on his implementation of tariffs success won’t be immediate.
“Economically, quite frankly, you can’t turn on a dime when it comes to tariffs. If you want to increase manufacturing in this country, it could take years. It could take it decades. The kinds of things he’s talking about, multibillion dollar investments for increased manufacturing here in this country. Long term could take a while, but the political shelf life of this is much shorter. You may not want to look at your 401K for the next day or two or week or month because that may not be a very, very pleasant experience”.
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