“So what we’ve done is we’ve gone back not all the way to where we were in January, but closer to where we were on ‘Liberation Day’ on Apr 2,” she added.
Elms said the three-month pause is not likely to affect any long-term investment decisions, but short-term consumer demand might pick up.
“There will be a lot more purchases… of things like Halloween decorations, Christmas ordering… in order to try to get it (into) the US before this 90-day pause expires,” she said.
Still, she remained cautious about how much of this pause may translate into trade activity, as trade routes and container deliveries need restarting.
“We don’t have ships currently on the water in the numbers that we had back in January,” added Elms.
She said business operations have been paralysed by the uncertainty caused by the tariffs, and firms may still be reluctant to increase their orders.
While the tariffs for Chinese goods have been reduced to 30 per cent, Elms said this is still a painful increase in duties for US consumers, who may still cut back on discretionary spending like Christmas shopping.
She added that these surprise tariff reductions could be a sign that the pain from economic decoupling had severely affected the population and businesses.
Elms hoped the pause is enough for progress to be made regarding the tariffs, but remained cautious over the outcome.
“There is no guarantee that these tariff rates that we currently have are going to stick. They could go down… but they could also go back up again,” she said.
