President-elect Donald Trump has promised to use tariffs as part of an economic agenda aimed at reviving U.S. manufacturing and upending trading partnerships he views as unfair. If enacted, those policies could have a big impact in Louisiana, home to one of the nation’s biggest port systems.
Trump’s first term brought a series of tariffs targeting China, steel, aluminum, and other imports. Those tariffs, the Trump administration said at the time, were intended to reduce trade imbalances, protect U.S. industries from unfair competition and counter practices like intellectual property theft.
Tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum were enacted in March 2018, and Trump also imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods. China retaliated with tariffs on U.S. goods, including agricultural products like soybeans, pork and other exports.
Tariff hikes
During the 2024 campaign, Trump proposed tariffs of 10% to 20% on foreign goods — and in some speeches he has mentioned even higher percentages.
The tariffs of Trump’s first term resulted in a drop in volumes of cargo through Louisiana’s ports. For example, aluminum imports at the Port of New Orleans fell by half after the tariffs were imposed. Exports like soybeans, which Louisiana ships in large quantities via the Port of South Louisiana to countries including China, also declined by about 20% during the initial tariff period as trading partners retaliated.
Imported steel is offloaded at the Port of New Orleans, which has been hit by U.S. tariffs.
The ports of southern Louisiana collectively manage a large portion of U.S. trade. The Port of South Louisiana alone facilitates nearly 15% of all U.S. exports, largely driven by its role in agricultural trade. More than 50% of U.S. agricultural exports, including corn, soybeans, rice, and related products, are shipped through the New Orleans Customs District.
The Port of New Orleans’ clients make it the country’s largest importer of coffee in the country and it also plays an important role in the metals market and as an exporter of processed foods such as pork and chicken.
Port NOLA spokesperson Kimberly Curth said the port did not want to comment on “speculative policy,” and the Port of South Louisiana wasn’t immediately available.
During the first Trump administration, port officials lamented the tariffs’ effect on port business and the wider economy, saying they had the opposite effect to that intended.
Trump and his supporters have said they believe new tariffs would help bring back manufacturing jobs and boost wages, thus benefiting American workers and industries.
He has not specified how he would counteract potential inflationary impacts or the rise in consumer prices that economists say tariffs would bring.
The Port of New Orleans photographed from the Mississippi River in New Orleans, Friday, June 14, 2024. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)
Douglas Nelson, an economics professor at Tulane University’s Murphy Institute, noted that Trump has consistently said on the campaign trail that he would implement the across-the-board 10% tariff on imports, while goods coming from China could face a 60% import tax.
Nelson noted that many American corn and soybean farmers suffered long- term consequences from the previous tariffs.
“The impact on soybeans and corn has been striking,” said Nelson. “China now imports most of its corn from Brazil, for example. Also, the Trump administration ended up sending virtually the entire revenue raised from the tariffs as subsidies to the farmers.”
Apart from the impact on ports and industries, average consumers in Louisiana and elsewhere in the U.S. would also pay a price, according to studies of the impact of Trump’s 2018 tariffs.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the National Bureau of Economic Research said that the brunt of the cost of the tariffs were borne by American consumers, with the average household paying between $1,000 and $1,700 more a year.
Nelson also said that tariffs are a regressive tax — meaning poor people pay a greater share than the rich — and they contributed to the inflation surge from mid-2021.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.