Has Trump Just Cooked Israel’s Economy?

Right, so could a direct assault on an already rapidly deteriorating economy be what brings Zionism to its knees? Certainly there’s been a major falling out today as Donald Trump’s tariff addiction, clearly still not clear on the fact that these do much more damage to the US economy than they do to most states that those tariffs are inflicted on, so good luck as the US consumer will now pay more for pretty much every single import going, but Israel isn’t most states.
With an economy absolutely crippled because of the expense of the genocide in Gaza as well as wars it is waging in Lebanon and Syria right now, for no more reason than to keep Trump in power, Israel cannot afford to lose imports to other countries, especially not to its biggest customer, the US, but as the cost of their good to import rises, demand for them will fall and where many nations might absorb such losses, a 17% tariff for Israel is serious. But where you might have no sympathy for the Israelis or their economy here, it is even more hilarious when you consider that Israel ditched all tariffs on US imports just 2 days ago!
Right, so the tangerine tinged economic tragedy that is the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has gone hog wild with his tariff obsession and pretty much slapped tariffs on every corner of the planet, from the largest states and trade blocs to the smallest islands, and yes, a 10% tariff on the Heard & McDonald Islands very much fits that bill, along with Trumps madness, because there are no people living on these islands, they are colonies for seals and penguins. I’m not quite sure what Little Donnie thinks the US imports via penguin manufacture, perhaps it is where he thinks tuxedo’s come from. You think I’m joking, I wouldn’t put it past him.
But the most surprising tariff inflicted, not least to those it has been inflicted upon has been Israel, with 17% tariffs on all Israeli goods and coming just two days as this was after Israel eliminated all tariffs on US imports. Might be news to US citizens that for all the aid they have been paying for that has been sent Israel’s way, the US was subject to tariffs by them, but they were and then they weren’t and then Trump drops Tariffs on them himself, so expect those tariffs to at least be reimplemented. A trade war with Israel though? Who would have put money on that happening and does it not really prove Trump hasn’t got a Scooby when it comes to tariffs no matter what he must be being told repeatedly behind closed doors? Even worse, or even funnier depending on your perspective I suppose, is the fact that 17% on Israel targets then at a higher rate than Western boogeymen Iran, with 10% tariffs and the Taliban run Afghanistan, also with 10% tariffs. This is horrendously bad news for Israel with an economy on its knees for a multitude of reasons all caused by the ongoing warring that began with the genocide in Gaza and has since extended brutally to the West Bank, to Lebanon, to Syria and strikes on other Middle Eastern states such as Yemen. Businesses are folding as reservists keep having to drop their lives and got to war, war is always bad for business unless you are in the arms sales game, so everyone outside of this industry is suffering, investment and tourism are drying up and now Israel’s biggest customer, for it relies on sea trade with nations outside of the Middle East where it is a pariah of decades long standing, has imposed 17% tariffs on its goods, they will be able to sell less, costing jobs and driving up prices.
Now Trump’s justification for imposing all of these tariffs stems from a belief, or at the very least a narrative that other nations have been having it good at the expense of the US, that other nations were getting too good of a deal at the expense of American jobs and economic well being. Imposing tariffs just kick starts a trade war with everyone else though. Nobody wins, ordinary people lose out as less business gets conducted, jobs are destroyed, economic growth stalls, Trump is recreating 2008 all by himself and the biggest losers of all are US citizens who will be going to the shop and wondering why eggs are now $20 a carton and that they have no money left. Trump is not a good businessman, he never has been, he is an idiot and he has surrounded himself with even bigger idiots who won’t stop him, they’ll just kiss his backside as he implements economic catastrophe.
Where Israel is concerned though, they are of course the exception. Before lifting tariffs on US goods on the 1st April, Israel had long imposed steep trade barriers on some US agricultural and manufactured goods, not much following a free trade deal from 1985, but still some, but these were abolished.
What Trump has done, is bizarre to say the least therefore. What he has done is take the bilateral trade deficit from each country, the amount by which imports exceed exports, an utterly irrelevant starting point, but for Israel this came to $7.4bn, divide this figure by the cost of exports to the US, which for Israel was $22bn, giving a percentage here of 33% and then Trump divided this by two to give him what he believed to be the correct tariff to impose, which for Israel comes in at 17%. No special treatment, but no sense in these calculations at all.
Israel has responded in the immediate term with blind panic. Industries brace for collapse, job losses have already been triggered and its sent Israel’s finance minister into crisis mode, but I doubt anyone familiar with Bezalel Smotrich will feel the least bit sorry for him.
Yes, the far-right extremist who boats of crushing Palestinian resistance, and wants Gaza for Trump’s vision of Gaza-Lago, complete with the total ethnic cleansing of Gaza, who has praised Trump so much for this plan for Gaza is now panicking over Trump’s tariffs, having hastily convened emergency meetings with industry leaders. For all of his warmongering rhetoric, his government, are already struggling with wartime inflation and a ballooning deficit, and now Trump tariffs on top means Israel faces an export catastrophe, a big hit to those multibillion dollar exports to the US.
So where are the tariffs hitting hardest and where aren’t they?
Well the tariffs are only being levied on manufactured goods, so the prominent Israeli service sector goes untouched, which for Israel is good news, since this includes their high tech sector, already being hit as it is through lack of investment, tech start ups being sold off so business owners can get out of Israel, but that still leaves 60% of Israeli exports to their largest customer subject to those 17% tariffs.
10% of the US’s diamond exports come from Israel, not that these are inherently Israeli, they come from the exploitation of other nations, particularly poorer African states, but is an export particularly vulnerable to price sensitivity and Israel could lose out big to other diamond trading nations not hit by such severe tariffs. Many pharmaceuticals produced for the US market come from Israel, so drug prices may rise for American consumers, and of course much of the kosher produce sold on US supermarket shelves comes from Israel, so this is a particularly sensitive import line and of course we can’t forget that all of this comes on top of the fact many people in the US will be boycotting Israeli produce already as part of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, so all of this already comes on top of that drop in demand.
The damage is not insignificant here. Economists in Israel have warned that as a direct result of these tariffs 10,000 jobs at least could be lost in the first year in Israel, Israel’s floundering economy will see a drop os between 2-3%, pushing the country into recession and prioritising war over the economy is going to be a very hard sell for Netanyahu and even more investment will be lost as Israeli, aside from being seen as a bad bet amidst wartime to invest in already, will lose further investment as businesses decide that Israel is now less competitive.
So will these tariffs inadvertently put an end to Israel’s warring and expansionism?
Certainly a weakened currency as this would all lead to could harm spending, but none of this factors in the determination of Benjamin Netanyahu to keep himself in post no matter what, so I think he would be more likely to decimate the Israeli Shekel all the more, rather than risk putting himself out of power, but with its currency reserves shrinking, with exports collapsing, it would in theory limit Israel’s ability to fund the Gaza genocide and keep procuring US arms, which might send the US arms firms into a flap and well, id anything would probably elicit a reversal in Trumps moves here it would probably be that.
It would be a bitter irony though that while the US is making a fortune sending billions in bullets and bombs to Israel, it is now strangling Israel’s economy, very much exposing the contradiction and the fraudulence of America’s "unwavering support" for Israel.
Ultimately though, this can be seen at least in part as a self-inflicted crisis on Israel’s part and few will sympathise with them through their loss of exports, though of course the biggest losers will be American consumers.
Israel’s leaders gambled on Trump’s loyalty, that he was their mate, that he could be trusted and they lost because Trump is loyal only to himself. By alienating other global markets with its Gaza genocide, these punitive US tariffs will be all the more painful, as the Israeli economy is teetering on the brink. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
It isn’t just allies from outside Israel that Netanyahu may be losing, but also those within his own government too, all adding to the economic woes he’s enduring at that because the guy who might be getting a bit upset, also happens to be the guy currently having to fix this economic mess of Trumps making. Get all the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch. Please do also hit like, share and subscribe if you haven’t already done so, so as to ensure you don’t miss out on all new daily content as well as help support the channel at the same time which is very much appreciated, holding power to account for ordinary working class people and I will hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.