{"id":332164,"date":"2025-04-08T00:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T16:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/?p=332164"},"modified":"2025-04-08T00:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T16:55:10","slug":"commentary-trumps-tariffs-could-be-net-positive-for-the-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/commentary-trumps-tariffs-could-be-net-positive-for-the-philippines\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary: Trump’s tariffs could be net positive for the Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Trump’s \u201cLiberation day\u201d is here<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a press conference held at the Rose Garden in the White House, U.S. President Trump laid out the list of reciprocal tariffs on its trading partners relative to their purported level of tariffs and other trade barriers on the U.S. These reciprocal tariffs will be on top of existing tariffs like the 20% on China, 25% on Canada and Mexico except items included in the USMCA free trade agreement, and 25% on automobiles, aluminum and steel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relatively better off than our neighbors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump imposed a 17% reciprocal tariff on the Philippines, the second lowest in Southeast Asia after Timor-Leste (10%) and Singapore (10%). This is also slightly lower than our closest competitors when it comes to textile exports\u2013Vietnam (20%) and Bangladesh (37%)\u2013and manufactured food exports\u2013Thailand (36%) and Indonesia (32%). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To recall, a lot of manufacturing capacity moved to Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia after Trump targeted China during his first term. These countries are now facing higher tariffs compared to us, which would now make us more competitive granted that we can ease regulatory barriers to doing business in the Philippines, lower the cost of electricity, and improve our infrastructure to entice manufacturers to move here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could be net positive for the Philippines<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering what was discussed above, there could be an opportunity here for us. Looking at the big picture, even though the U.S. is our largest export destination, it still accounts for only around 16% of our total exports as of February 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our participation in RCEP, which includes ASEAN, China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, gives us plenty of other large markets for our exports. The trade barriers erected by the U.S. could also open the floodgates for the influx of more products from our neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, we might see higher availability of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cars, as well as manufactured goods from Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Further, as we have repeatedly stated in previous reports, the Philippine economy is primarily driven by domestic consumption (around 75% of GDP) and our main \u201cexports\u201d are mainly services in the form of OFWs and BPOs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, the export of goods accounted for only 13.8% of GDP in 2024. So while we do not downplay the risks posed by these tariffs on the global economy and the possible knock-on effects on the Philippines, we believe that the effect on the local economy would be net positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

This report is prepared by PinoyInvestor\u2019s partner broker below. Find out more about our partner brokers<\/a> and sign up to avail their complete trading brokerage services.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a commentary on an important issue or event affecting the stock market<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1124,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentaries-special-reports","category-special-reports","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332166,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332164\/revisions\/332166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}