November 8, 2024 • 7 mins
Asia is bracing for tariffs from Donald Trump’s election victory.
The President-elect is proposing adding up to 20 percent on import tariffs, but is also vowing to impose 60 percent on Chinese imports.
But Asia business correspondent Peter Lewis told Heather du Plessis-Allan Asia has been preparing for this for a couple of years now.
He says some economists reckon this could knock 2.5 percentage points off of China’s GDP, and Japan and South Korea could also get dragged into the crosshairs.
Lewis says there's also a lot of questions around security - as Trump calls for countries to pay more for Taiwan's defence.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We will dat ud be at us out of the
UK and ten minutes time. How amazing is this?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Okay, tomorrow, when the All Blacks run out against the Irish,
it will be the six hundred and forty ninth time
that the All Blacks play. Let's round it up, let's
say six fifty. So the All Blacks have played six
hundred and fifty times tomorrow, and three hundred and fifty
of those games will have been called by Grantners. But
is that not amazing? I mean to be fair, Okay,
it's it's kind of like it's heavily stacked nowadays because
(00:41):
they play a lot more than they would have, you know,
in the years when they the years before Grantners, but
it would have been few and far between, would have
been the tests and stuff. But that is pretty incredible
to be the guy who is called well over half
of the All Blacks tests. That's incredible. Seventy four years old,
so heabes more years out of Grantner's. But thanks very much.
It's funny that actually came out today because I was
(01:01):
when I was watching the All Blacks England game last week,
I was listening to him and I just thought I
thought to myself, geez, what are we going to do
when we don't have I don't remember a time before grants,
but that does not exist for me. Nisbo's been them
my whole life. What do we do when Lisbou retires,
when he's like, right, that's good enough, had enough of talking,
or if he got laryngitis for like a month or
(01:23):
something like that, what would we do? Because I tell
you what, I wouldn't want to be the guy, likely
a guy filling Nisbo's shoes, would you? I mean, geez,
look at the hard time we gave Justin Marshall. The
one who fills in for Nisbo would be wow, hard
times twenty three away from seven either due to see LS.
Peter Lewis, Asia Business correspondent with US Now, Hey, Peter,
good evening, Heather is Asia treating the threats of these
(01:45):
tariffs by Trump as real?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Absolutely. I mean they've had a couple of years now
to really prepare for this. They shouldn't be surprised because
this was always on the cards that Trump was going
to win. And also he's been pretty clear about what
he's going to do. And if you thought, you know,
Trump version one was like drinking whiskey. It was diluted
with some coke. This time, you're just taking the neat whiskey.
(02:11):
Because the things that is talking about doing are going
to be pretty drastic. In the case of China, he's
talking about sixty percent tariffs on all Chinese imports into
the US, ending the country's Most Favored Nation trading status
as well. So some economists are saying this could knock
(02:32):
two and a half percentage points off of China's GDP,
and then other countries around the region could easily get
dragged into the crosshairs of this, particularly Japan and South Korea.
I mean, companies have started to work out how to
sort of get around the tariffs, and they've been rooting
goods that normally go to China through other countries like Mexico,
(02:54):
for example. That Trump's got the measure of that, because
it's going to slap twenty percent tariffs on imports from
everywhere else. So it could be that there's no way
around this for some of the Asian countries. But as
I say, they've had time to draw up contingency plans,
I'm absolutely certainly have. They're going to have to pour
these out of the drawer now and start acting on them.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
But Peter, I mean saying Trump is in the past.
This is the argument that was made to be Trump
is in the past, said a lot of stuff, and
they're not done it. For example, he went after NAFTA,
said it was the worst agreement in the history of
the world, and then he basically renegotiated the thing to
be about eighty five percent the same as what it
was before, and suddenly it was the best thing in
the world. Right. And at some point he is going
to realize that if you slap everything coming out of
(03:38):
China with a mass of tariff, you are going to
and a lot of it is componentry that goes into
other things, you're going to end up pushing the price
of that American product up so much it will be counterproductive.
So does he at some stage not actually like take
the tough talk, negotiate a little bit, and come out
the other side with a good deal.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Well, I don't think he sees it that way. Last time,
he and by his own admission on the problems he
had was he had established establishment people around him who
talked him out of doing some of the things that
he wanted to do, and he sees that as a
big mistake and is not going to make that same
mistake this time around. Is going to surround himself with loyalists.
(04:16):
He could well have a clean sweep of Congress, so
literally no one to oppose him, and just a lot
of yes men in his cabinet. So he's got, for example,
people like Robert Leipheiser, who was the former trade advisor,
who says tariffs are not inflationary, and he makes the
point that when Trump was last president, inflation never once
(04:38):
went above three percent during his first term. So you know,
Trump has convinced himself and has been told by some
of his closest advisers that this is not going to
put out prices for American consumers, and I think he
believes that now. Of course, economists, a lot of economists
say otherwise and say this is going to be hugely
damaging for the American It's going to be hugely inflationary.
(05:02):
If you try and deport these millions of migrants, that's
going to leave a huge hole in the American economy
as well. But he doesn't see any of that. Now
when the evidence comes and you do see this inflationary
spy because I'm sure will happen because the conditions this
time around are very difference, the economic conditions very different
(05:23):
from the first term. The damage will have already been
done in terms of damage to lost GDP, lost jobs
and so on.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Peter, what about Taiwan. Does he defend it?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Well, that's another question. I mean, there is going to
be a whole series of questions around security arrangements in Asia,
including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea. He's openly said he wants
countries to pay more for the defense. He sees it
as a transaction, as a transaction, not as America exercise
in global leadership. So he takes the view that will
(06:00):
do is will protect you, and you pay and you
buy some things off of us in return. So the
big question mark is where does Taiwan fit into his thinking.
He did just recently accused Taiwan of stealing the American
chip industry. He didn't explain how Taiwan was supposed to
have done that, but he was threatening to put tariffs
(06:20):
on companies like Taiwan's Semiconductor, which is the biggest chip
manufacturer in the world. This will also have a dramatic
impact on global supply chains. So you know, Taiwan is
also very much in the crosshairs. And I think in Taipei,
although they had been saying they have very good relations
with the US and they expect that to continue, I
(06:42):
think they must be worried.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Geez, Actually very interesting times here, doesn't it. Peter, Thanks
very much, talk to you in a week's time. That's
Peter Lewis, Asia Business correspondent out of Hong Kong.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
For more from Hither Duplassy Alan Drive, listen live to
news talks.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
We will dat ud be at us out of the
UK and ten minutes time. How amazing is this?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Okay, tomorrow, when the All Blacks run out against the Irish,
it will be the six hundred and forty ninth time
that the All Blacks play. Let's round it up, let's
say six fifty. So the All Blacks have played six
hundred and fifty times tomorrow, and three hundred and fifty
of those games will have been called by Grantners. But
is that not amazing? I mean to be fair, Okay,
it's it's kind of like it's heavily stacked nowadays because
(00:41):
they play a lot more than they would have, you know,
in the years when they the years before Grantners, but
it would have been few and far between, would have
been the tests and stuff. But that is pretty incredible
to be the guy who is called well over half
of the All Blacks tests. That's incredible. Seventy four years old,
so heabes more years out of Grantner's. But thanks very much.
It's funny that actually came out today because I was
(01:01):
when I was watching the All Blacks England game last week,
I was listening to him and I just thought I
thought to myself, geez, what are we going to do
when we don't have I don't remember a time before grants,
but that does not exist for me. Nisbo's been them
my whole life. What do we do when Lisbou retires,
when he's like, right, that's good enough, had enough of talking,
or if he got laryngitis for like a month or
(01:23):
something like that, what would we do? Because I tell
you what, I wouldn't want to be the guy, likely
a guy filling Nisbo's shoes, would you? I mean, geez,
look at the hard time we gave Justin Marshall. The
one who fills in for Nisbo would be wow, hard
times twenty three away from seven either due to see LS.
Peter Lewis, Asia Business correspondent with US Now, Hey, Peter,
good evening, Heather is Asia treating the threats of these
(01:45):
tariffs by Trump as real?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Absolutely. I mean they've had a couple of years now
to really prepare for this. They shouldn't be surprised because
this was always on the cards that Trump was going
to win. And also he's been pretty clear about what
he's going to do. And if you thought, you know,
Trump version one was like drinking whiskey. It was diluted
with some coke. This time, you're just taking the neat whiskey.
(02:11):
Because the things that is talking about doing are going
to be pretty drastic. In the case of China, he's
talking about sixty percent tariffs on all Chinese imports into
the US, ending the country's Most Favored Nation trading status
as well. So some economists are saying this could knock
(02:32):
two and a half percentage points off of China's GDP,
and then other countries around the region could easily get
dragged into the crosshairs of this, particularly Japan and South Korea.
I mean, companies have started to work out how to
sort of get around the tariffs, and they've been rooting
goods that normally go to China through other countries like Mexico,
(02:54):
for example. That Trump's got the measure of that, because
it's going to slap twenty percent tariffs on imports from
everywhere else. So it could be that there's no way
around this for some of the Asian countries. But as
I say, they've had time to draw up contingency plans,
I'm absolutely certainly have. They're going to have to pour
these out of the drawer now and start acting on them.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
But Peter, I mean saying Trump is in the past.
This is the argument that was made to be Trump
is in the past, said a lot of stuff, and
they're not done it. For example, he went after NAFTA,
said it was the worst agreement in the history of
the world, and then he basically renegotiated the thing to
be about eighty five percent the same as what it
was before, and suddenly it was the best thing in
the world. Right. And at some point he is going
to realize that if you slap everything coming out of
(03:38):
China with a mass of tariff, you are going to
and a lot of it is componentry that goes into
other things, you're going to end up pushing the price
of that American product up so much it will be counterproductive.
So does he at some stage not actually like take
the tough talk, negotiate a little bit, and come out
the other side with a good deal.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Well, I don't think he sees it that way. Last time,
he and by his own admission on the problems he
had was he had established establishment people around him who
talked him out of doing some of the things that
he wanted to do, and he sees that as a
big mistake and is not going to make that same
mistake this time around. Is going to surround himself with loyalists.
(04:16):
He could well have a clean sweep of Congress, so
literally no one to oppose him, and just a lot
of yes men in his cabinet. So he's got, for example,
people like Robert Leipheiser, who was the former trade advisor,
who says tariffs are not inflationary, and he makes the
point that when Trump was last president, inflation never once
(04:38):
went above three percent during his first term. So you know,
Trump has convinced himself and has been told by some
of his closest advisers that this is not going to
put out prices for American consumers, and I think he
believes that now. Of course, economists, a lot of economists
say otherwise and say this is going to be hugely
damaging for the American It's going to be hugely inflationary.
(05:02):
If you try and deport these millions of migrants, that's
going to leave a huge hole in the American economy
as well. But he doesn't see any of that. Now
when the evidence comes and you do see this inflationary
spy because I'm sure will happen because the conditions this
time around are very difference, the economic conditions very different
(05:23):
from the first term. The damage will have already been
done in terms of damage to lost GDP, lost jobs
and so on.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Peter, what about Taiwan. Does he defend it?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Well, that's another question. I mean, there is going to
be a whole series of questions around security arrangements in Asia,
including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea. He's openly said he wants
countries to pay more for the defense. He sees it
as a transaction, as a transaction, not as America exercise
in global leadership. So he takes the view that will
(06:00):
do is will protect you, and you pay and you
buy some things off of us in return. So the
big question mark is where does Taiwan fit into his thinking.
He did just recently accused Taiwan of stealing the American
chip industry. He didn't explain how Taiwan was supposed to
have done that, but he was threatening to put tariffs
(06:20):
on companies like Taiwan's Semiconductor, which is the biggest chip
manufacturer in the world. This will also have a dramatic
impact on global supply chains. So you know, Taiwan is
also very much in the crosshairs. And I think in Taipei,
although they had been saying they have very good relations
with the US and they expect that to continue, I
(06:42):
think they must be worried.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Geez, Actually very interesting times here, doesn't it. Peter, Thanks
very much, talk to you in a week's time. That's
Peter Lewis, Asia Business correspondent out of Hong Kong.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
For more from Hither Duplassy Alan Drive, listen live to
news talks.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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