The tariffs announced by President Donald Trump and his protectionist policies will reduce the presence of Spanish companies in the United States. To this warning of the General Council of Economists (CGE) are added the difficulties facing the smallest companies to diversify markets – given that in many cases they do not have the resources or enough time for it – and the competition problems that will generate that search for new markets.
In a colloquium organized this Thursday with the Spanish exporters and investors club, economists have warned that Washington is using trade taxes for purposes that go beyond the strictly commercial or economic and transcend the geopolitical. The uncertainty generated by this crisis is such that it will not be compensated or by the reduction of the interest rates applied by the European Central Bank (ECB) or by the fall in hydrocarbons prices or by the “rapid and very good” government action with the immediate deployment of an response and commercial relaunch plan of 14,100 million euros.
Despite all these factors, which would operate as tail winds for companies, from the export club they point to “An almost inexorable reduction in the United States of Spanish companies”according to its president, Antonio Bonet. In the compass of destinations where trying to diversify the business place both the Southeast Asia and the European Union (EU). Companies remember, however, that this movement will inevitable a strong increase in competition.
They are not just tariffs
Tariffs are a price, but Donald Trump’s measures also affect interest rates or currency behavior and “interest rates are fundamental if I am an investor and not only exporter,” said Joaquín de la Herrán, coordinator of the US and Canada’s work area in the aforementioned club. “There will be no company that does not consider How the North American Market affects balance in its accounts“He has apostilled.
To the European Union, both exporters and economists ask you to respond “with proportionality, but with intelligence”, and avoid visceral responses that cause “immediate reprisals”in the words of the Director of the Studies Service of the Council of Economists, Salvador Marín, who has opted to reinforce commercial diplomacy and announce specific temporary aid for the affected sectors and the ‘Made in Europe’ in strategic sectors. The twenty -seven must, in their opinion, take advantage of this crisis to reinforce their block image and also lighten the pending structural reforms that serve to reinforce it as an economic zone.
