With just six weeks to go until Election Day, the 2024 presidential contest is heading into the final stretch. Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have provided more details on their policy positions since their respective party conventions this summer.

Both of the candidates’ proposals address hot-button issues of interest to the promotional products industry – in particular taxes, tariffs and trade agreements. This article provides a comparative overview of the candidates’ specific views on these topics.

Taxes

Taxes are a major concern for any business, as well as for individuals. While the executive branch wields a great deal of independent power when it comes to tariffs and trade agreements, keep in mind that the next president’s tax reform efforts will depend on the composition and priorities of Congress.

Trump supports making the individual and estate tax cuts of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent, lowering the corporate income tax rate from 21% to 15% for companies that make their products in the United States and exempting Social Security benefits and overtime pay from taxation.

He is also considering replacing the income tax with tariffs, expanding the Child Tax Credit to a $5,000 universal credit and taxing large private university endowments. The Trump campaign has released no proposed policies regarding capital gains and dividend taxes.

Harris has called for increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. While she proposes raising the capital gains tax from 20% to 28% for individuals for taxpayers who earn $1 million or more, it’s a lower rate than the 39.6% proposed by President Joe Biden’s 2025 budget.

She also supports expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, restoring the Child Tax Credit expansion under the American Rescue Plan Act, establishing a new $6,000 credit for families with newborns and extending or making permanent the health insurance premium tax credit set to expire in 2025.

Earlier this month, Harris announced a proposal to greatly expand the small business tax credit – from its current $5,000 to $50,000 – and to develop a standard deduction for small businesses. The proposal also includes a provision to allow businesses to wait until they are profitable to claim the credit.

Tariffs

Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports enacted by the Trump administration – and continued and expanded by the Biden administration – have added costs for many promo companies over the past few years.

Axios reports that a second Trump administration “would likely rely even more heavily than the first on tariffs as a policy tool,” based on the candidate’s remarks earlier this month to business and Wall Street leaders at the Economic Club of New York.

In his Agenda47 policy platform, Trump has advocated for a 10% across-the-board tariff on most foreign goods, and he has more recently indicated that this tariff could be as high as 20%. Additionally, he has proposed a system of reciprocal tariffs, which would adjust U.S. tariffs to match those levied by other countries.

Trump has also floated a 60% tariff on all Chinese goods, argued for rescinding China’s Most Favored Nation trade status and said he would impose “a four-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods,” along with new rules to stop U.S. companies from making investments in China and to inhibit purchases of assets in the U.S. by Chinese companies.

The Biden administration has opposed across-the-board tariffs but expanded some targeted tariffs, such as steel and aluminum from China, accusing the country of unfair trade practices.

The Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank, reports that Harris says the U.S. “should ‘de-risk,’ not decouple” from China. A Harris administration would likely continue Biden’s approach, increasing tariffs on a select number of strategic sectors but avoiding the broad tariffs favored by Trump.

Trade Agreements

Importing from Asian nations other than China and nearshoring with North, Central and South American partners has become increasingly important for the promotional products industry. International trade agreements affect American companies’ ability to do business abroad by reducing barriers and providing protections and rights to U.S. businesses. 

Trump withdrew the U.S. from negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement signed by 12 Pacific Rim economies, in 2017. He has promised to likewise terminate its replacement, the 14-nation Indo-Pacific Economic Framework “on day one,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Although he was also an ardent critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Trump’s administration negotiated the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that kept in place a nearly tariff-free market with Mexico and Canada.

When Harris campaigned for the Senate in 2016, she also opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, citing environmental concerns. In the Senate, she was one of 10 Democrats who voted against ratifying the USMCA trade agreement, again citing a lack of environmental protections.

Alan Wolff, a trade policy expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, suggests that Harris is not opposed to international trade agreements “but expects them to have strict, enforceable provisions for progressive priorities like workers’ rights and climate change protections.”

Economic Experts Predict

How would the candidates’ proposed policies affect the U.S. economy overall?

  • Reuters reports that Goldman Sachs analysts say earnings of S&P 500 companies would take a 5% hit under the 28% corporate tax rate proposed by Harris, while Trump’s proposed cut would boost them about 4%.
  • Goldman Sachs also predicts the U.S. economy overall would take a hit from Trump’s proposed tariff expansion, aimed at boosting American manufacturing. Tariffs drive up prices, and import-driven businesses like promotional products firms pass on higher costs to consumers.
  • USA Today reports predictions by Moody’s Analytics that inflation would rise from 3% this year to 3.5% in 2025 under a second Trump administration, compared to 2.4% under Harris, and that Trump’s plan would spark a recession by mid-year.
  • The Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan, research-based initiative, speculates that “an all-out trade war … could reduce U.S. GDP by as much as 5 percent over the next two decades.” Its Guide to the 2024 Presidential Candidates’ Policy Proposals suggests that complete removal of all trade barriers by the U.S. and its trading partners could boost U.S. GDP by as much as 8% over the next two decades.