“Auroces” is the qualifying one that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, uses to refer to the commercial deficits that he accumulates with the economic areas to which the White House tenant begins to punish with tariffs – although it is willing also to accept truces, like the month of margin granted to Mexico. And the truth is that the figures are right. The sum of the annual imbalance between exports and imports between the US, on the one hand, and China, the European Union, Mexico and Canada, on the other, currently equivalent to about 700,000 million dollars (678,000 million euros), some figures that are They approach half of the total volume of an economy like Spanish.
The breakdown of the numbers by countries is not always clear, since Trump himself uses some computations or others, depending on the forum to which he speaks and the intensity with which he wants to cover his speech. Moreover, the head of state has come to say this week that only the US-EU-EU outer deficit, favorable to the latter, amounts to “more than 300,000 million.”
However, the most reliable, and homogenized records – until early last year – place that variable in virtually 200,000 million, which means that the largest commercial imbalance that the United States drags still has as its main beneficiary China, with a total of a total of 270,000 million last year.
The US dependence on imports from the Asian giant is calibrated even better by going to the data broken down by product rubrics. Not in almost 40% of the computer equipment that cross US borders have been assembled in Chinese factories, yes, using in many cases, components of American multinationals. In the case of mobile phones, the percentage approaches 50%.
To this, the almost complete domain, on a global scale, which Beijing exercises in the export of basic raw materials without elaborating for defense and technology, such as Gallium, Germanio and antimony should also be added.
After China and EU as a whole, the United States accumulates the largest commercial deficit in relation to Mexico. It cannot be surprised that Donald Trump was especially impatient for punishing his southern neighbor, with a tariff battery authorized by Washington already last weekend, and remarkable amount (25%).
The accumulated deficit with Mexico, always favorable to the latter, exceeds 150,000 million annually and allows the country now chaired by Claudia Sheinbaum to hold a position of clear hegemony in sforms such as exports aimed at the US of transport vehicles, automotive components in the broader or screens for electronic devices.
In this case, it should also be made clear that, even when these products have been manufactured on Mexican soil, especially in the case of cars, their producers are large US companies that years ago were relocated to lower their costs. Specifically, General Motors manufactured more than 350,000 vehicles in the first semester of this year, practically allocated to be sold in the United States.
Enemy of the gasoline
In the case of the other great American economy, Canada, also subject to tariffs, its commercial imbalance is also significant, more than 75,000 million dollars, although notably less than the Mexican. However, Trump does not hesitate to apply the same punishment, given that his northern neighbor is a clear beneficiary of the already longe -free trade of North America (NAFTA) that represents the type of commercial agreements with which The tycoon disagrees.
Not in vain what Washington now intends to promote are bilateral agreements, always carried out under the dominant position of the US government. Canada also constitutes the origin of almost 60% of the oil that the United States buys abroad – the percentage from Mexico is also striking: 12%.
Beyond Asian countries, such as Japan and Vietnam (in whose soil almost all American multinationals operate, from Intel or Apple to Nike), the contribution of European economies such as German to the US outer imbalance must also be taken into account.
The weight of Germany
The European locomotive exceeds Canada from this point of view with a commercial surplus in its favor, to the detriment of the United States, close to 90 million dollars. The presence of Teuton vehicle manufacturers in Mexico is also very remarkable, since Volkswagen exported more than 100,000 units to the United States, between January and June. In identical period, the figures corresponding to Audi approached 40,000 vehicles.
Red numbers of this magnitude makes the US a country very dependent on the economies with which it maintains a commercial balance, and on a current account so unbalanced. At the moment, China is the country that knows more about this position of power.
Even when President Xi Jinping’s executive is willing to negotiate, as well as his Canadian and Mexican counterparts, China imposed, at the end of last month, the restrictions so far rigorous for the export of strategic raw materials for the development of Semiconductors, while also seeking to put the Pentagon in trouble, restricting the sale of state -of -the -art weapons.
Specifically, the limits affect the gallium, the antimony or the Germanio and also to those called superduros metals. The graphite does not get rid of their sales abroad either.
The restrictions are vehiculated through different protocols, the most used of which consists of subjecting exporters to exhaustive interrogations about what will be the use to which, in the West, the materials they have acquired will be allocated. It remains at the discretion of the authorities of the Asian giant, determining the answers obtained are satisfactory.
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