It’s late 2025, and Donald Trump has done what he said he would do: impose high tariffs — taxes on imports — on goods coming from abroad, with extremely high tariffs on imports from China. These tariffs have had exactly the effect many economists predicted, although Trump insisted otherwise: higher prices for American buyers.

Let’s say you have a business that relies on imported parts — maybe from China, maybe from Mexico, maybe from somewhere else. What do you do?

Well, U.S. trade law gives the executive branch broad discretion in tariff-setting, including the ability to grant exemptions in special cases. So you apply for one of those exemptions. Will your request be granted?

In principle, the answer should depend on whether having to pay those tariffs imposes real hardship and threatens American jobs. In practice, you can safely guess that other criteria will play a role. How much money have you contributed

Keep reading this article on Paul Krugman - Column New York Times.

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