Trump’s trade deal with China won’t give many U.S. companies relief, as most tariffs will remain

From the Rust Belt to the Pacific Northwest and from the Gulf Coast to Niagara Falls, the outlook could not have been brighter for American chemical companies. Then President Trump nearly two years ago launched his trade war with China. On Wednesday, Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He are scheduled to sign a partial trade deal, calling a truce in a conflict that has shaken the global economy. Yet as the chemical industry’s experience shows, many of the trade war’s casualties have been left on the battlefield. Even as the White House celebrates the president’s negotiating accomplishment, the “phase one” deal offers little relief for countless American businesses — including chemical makers, apparel retailers and auto parts manufacturers — that will still face the same punishing tariffs they have confronted for some time. “There was an assumption that this was a short-term situation,” said Ed Brzytwa, director for international trade at the American Chemistry Council, an industry group. “We’re now at the point where we’re telling our members they should expect these tariffs are going to stay in place for a long time. This has become the new status quo for us.” In March 2018, when the president began imposing tariffs on Chinese goods — in a bid to force Beijing to abandon its discriminatory trade policies — chemical companies were building dozens of new plants and creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs around the country. Thanks to inexpensive shale gas, American chemical makers finally were poised to shed their high-cost reputation and become the world’s preferred supplier. But among the targets of the president’s tariffs were the Chinese raw materials that American plants use to produce industrial chemicals and plastics. China retaliated with its own import taxes, closing off the industry’s fastest-growing export market...MORE