'The turmoil restarts': Swing state set to suffer under Trump agenda

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports businesses in Georgia will take a hit from Trump rebooting his trade war with South Korea and Japan.

Trump’s plot to secure dozens of trade deals panned out to just three spotty deals as his 90-day moratorium on “Liberation Day” tariffs came to a close. Frustrated, the president sent out a typo-marred letter to at least 14 nations, misgendering a leader in Bosnia and Herzegovina and announcing a 25 percent import tax on products originating in South Korea and Japan.

But economists say his attack on Korea and Japan will hit purple state Georgia particularly hard because of its high number of trading partners originating in those countries.

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“The turmoil restarts,” said Sina Golara, assistant professor of supply chain management at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business. “… [Trump] is signaling that he is serious about implementing tariffs, however extreme they may seem. … At the same time, he is renewing his threat that any retaliation will trigger counter-retaliation, potentially setting off a chain reaction, as seen previously with China.”

The AJC reports Trump’s initial “Liberation Day” announcement a few months ago “rattled global markets by slapping tariffs on imported metals, including steel and aluminum, [and] foreign automobiles and parts.” The president put them on hold only after markets began to melt and economists warned of a recession.

However, AJC reports South Korea and Japan are top 10 trade partners for the state of Georgia, with Korea being the third-largest source of imported goods into Georgia, totaling $16.6 billion in 2024, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development. Japan ranked sixth at more than $6.6 billion last year. And both nations are also prolific investors in facilities in the state.

Tariffs are taxes on imported goods that are typically passed along by businesses to customers, whether they are end-products on a shelf or parts used in local manufacturing. All will likely hit Georgia pocketbooks, reports AJC.

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Georgia is already a swing state by virtue of its large population of Republican-leaning evangelical whites in its rural areas and Democratic-leaning Black voters and college-educated professionals in urban regions. Turnout in Atlanta and other heavily-populated areas have decided presidential elections in the past, with Atlanta coming out to replace Trump with Biden in 2020. Turnout in the state reached a new high in the 2024 presidential election, and an economy battered by high prices courtesy of Trump’s unilateral tariffs could again ramp up voter participation.

Read the full Atlanta Journal-Constitution report at this link.