Executive orders from President Donald Trump, which propose 25% tariffs on imports from China, Canada and Mexico have caused University of Rhode Island professors and staff to raise multiple economic and safety concerns for students.
The orders calling for possible tariffs on imports from these countries were released by the White House on Feb. 1.
It is still unclear if Trump will initiate these tariffs, which leaves firms frozen in place, according to Brenden Skip Mark, assistant professor of political science at URI.
“The real worry here is that no one knows what the administration’s goals are,” Mark said. “If you’re a firm, you don’t want to plan a long-term investment right now, you don’t know how much the cost of importing goods from other countries is going to be.”
If international tariffs are put in place, it will boost the exchange rate which will make studying at URI financially harder for international students, according to economics professor, Leonard Lardaro.
The United States dollar to Canadian dollar exchange rate is already up 6.15% since last year, with one U.S. dollar coming out to 1.4x the Canadian dollar, according to data from XE.
“Given that prices are going to be higher than they were, if [international students] are struggling, it would make it even harder to get by,” Lardaro said.
Imposed tariffs will also make it more difficult for URI students to study abroad, according to Kristen Johnson, vice provost of global initiatives.
“If students from URI on these programs are going to pay more to live and study abroad, that decreases the ability to do it,” Johnson said.
The university exchange program as a whole has the potential to be heavily impacted, with implications for both international students and students studying abroad, according to Johnson.
“If students from URI in [exchange programs] are going to pay more to live and study abroad, that decreases their ability to do so,” Johnson said. “If students from abroad are going to pay more to live and study here, fewer students can do it.”
U.S. students traveling abroad aren’t the only ones that would be impacted by tariffs, the U.S. economy will face an impact as well, according to Mark.
“Usually [tariffs] lead to job losses, salary cuts and benefit cuts in other industries because firms are trying to produce goods at a lower cost,” Mark said. “At some point [tariffs] can lead to economic crises and trade wars.”
Trade wars, or situations where countries attempt to destroy one anothers trade through tariffs, are a huge problem that could potentially lead to recession, according to Lardaro.
“Nobody wins a tariff war, like [this], so everyone would be hurt, and that could actually throw us, in a worst-case scenario, into recession,” Lardaro said. “My biggest concern would be large across the board, of tariffs that cause retaliation.”
Retaliatory tariffs have major economic consequences, according to Mark.
“If those countries also impose tariffs on us, then we are going to have a harder time competing with domestic producers in another country, consumers are going to pay higher costs,” Mark said.
The cost of cars, living and manufacturing of appliances and electronics will all increase, according to Mark.
Dangerous economic impacts would likely lead to diversionary conflicts or conflicts where the leader diverts the public attention away from themself to blame other causes, according to Mark.
“I’m worried that whichever way it looks like this is going to go, all of the uncertainty in the tariffs is going to require the administration to look for people to blame when things don’t improve because prices are going to continue rising,” Mark said.
The potential groups in danger would be immigrants, government critics and foreign countries, according to Mark.
“We don’t want leaders implementing policies that they think the public won’t understand the consequences of, and then when it doesn’t work, looking for people to blame,” Mark said.
It’s important to understand that, while tariffs in general aren’t bad, this utilization of tariffs to entice other countries to ‘pay their fair share’ is a concern, according to Mark.
“Both Republicans and Democrats historically have championed free trade,” Mark said.“A lot of countries are going to start hedging their bets and try to rely on the US less, and that’s going to hurt us a lot in the long run.”
During this time of uncertainty, the public needs to be careful with what information they believe, according to Lardaro. Many people claim tariffs won’t affect inflation.
“[People] say what they want the reality to be, not what the reality is, and that’s where you have to be careful,” Lardaro said. “Know what the reality is.”
