Economists mixed on possible impacts of Trump’s tariff proposals

There has thus been an uptick in the exports of final goods from China to the US, as importers aim to front-run possible tariffs on consumer items,

said Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC in Hong Kong

PacSun has a very proactive plan for what we can do to help our suppliers and vendors best,

Olson said

The toy business is a fashion business. It changes all the time,

Larian said

We could re-route supply from our Canadian smelters to Europe. While it is an advantage to have this optionality, it certainly is not a benefit for our customers and supply chains like them,

Alcoa CEO William Oplinger told investors earlier this month

We see companies currently front-loading their imports into the U.S.,

said Patrick Lepperhoff, managing director at supply chain consultancy Inverto in Cologne

Every delivery that we can make before a tariff is instituted, it's that much better ... than sitting on inventory,

said GM chief financial officer Paul Jacobson

Over the years we've tried to localize our supply chain in every market, but we are still reliant on parts from across the world for all our businesses,

Taneja said

We are treated horribly by the global trading environment. They all have higher tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers and subsidies,

Lutnick said

So this is a separate tariff to create action from Mexico and action from Canada,

Lutnick said of the 25% duty threat

They stole things. They broke in. They’ve taken our IP,

Lutnick said of China

I'll demand that interest rates drop and likewise, they should be dropping all over the world. Interest rates should follow us all over immediately."

This is especially relevant after Trump's recent statement demanding lower interest rates globally, saying

My way of thinking, and I've discussed this with the president, is country by country, macro. Let America make it more fair,

Lutnick said

This isn't just about tariffs. The president has threatened economic force. He's even floated the unthinkable -- taking over Canadian territory,

Ford said

You know that the labs in Canada are run by Mexican cartels. This tariff model is simply to shut their borders ... Respect America,

Lutnick said Wednesday

He seeks to divide and conquer, whether he imposes tariffs next week, next month or waits another year or more,

he said

I will dedicate myself to making our government more responsive, working to ensure Americans have the greatest opportunity for success,

Lutnick's testimony says

We need healthy businesses – small, medium, and large – to hire our great American workers to drive our economy,

Lutnick's testimony said

Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich foreign nations, we should be tariffing and taxing foreign nations to enrich our citizens."

Referring to his inaugural speech last week, Trump said

We're going to put tariffs on outside countries and outside people that really mean harm to us. Well, they mean us harm, but they basically want to make their country good,

Trump told House Republicans at a Florida retreat on Monday

Look at what others do. China is a tremendous tariff maker, and India and Brazil and so many other countries. So we're not going to let that happen any longer because we're going to put America first,

the US President said, ... according to news agency PTI