Dem
47
GOP
53
Think, for a moment, about the half-dozen or so "signature" issues of the two Trump administrations. That list would probably be something like: making America great again, America First, cutting taxes (on the rich, at least), hostility to immigrants and immigration, increasing presidential power, and tariffs. And of those, the one that has been a political football for far and away the longest time is tariffs. Americans have been arguing about them for at least 200 years. That pretty clearly implies that tariffs serve some very useful purposes (or they wouldn't have been in use, as a policy tool, for so long) but also that they come with some serious downsides (or they wouldn't have been bitterly opposed, by at least part of the populace, in every era of American history).
Earlier this week, as we wrote, Donald Trump announced brand-new 50% tariffs on a whole bunch of (alleged) Canadian imports. He probably did this as a negotiating tactic, because he wants to (once again) re-negotiate the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It would seem the previous negotiators (who just so happen to be Trump and some of his underlings) did a poor job, in his view.
The 50% tariffs, by law, won't kick in for another 4 weeks, and even then, only if Trump doesn't chicken out (yet again). Inasmuch as they came out of nowhere, with not the slightest hint prior to the announcement, it was likely that Trump made the decision impetuously, and then promulgated it in an overly rapid and careless fashion. Now that the dust has had a couple of days to settle, it turns out that supposition was well-founded. As it turns out, of the roughly 500 products on the "50% tariffs on Canada" list that the White House announced earlier this week, 85 of them aren't actually made in Canada. Oops. At least the administration did not slap any tariffs on Canadian penguins. Possibly that is because they don't have penguins in Canada, as they are a Southern Hemisphere species (Canada's Penguin Islands are named, inaccurately, after the great auks that used to live there).
Meanwhile, readers will recall that, back in February, the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs that Trump had imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (which was the lion's share of the Trump tariffs). What readers might not recall is that, a few days later, Trump imposed a new round of (mostly 10%) tariffs, under the terms of Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
The problem with Section 122, from the administration's perspective, is that the tariffs can only last for 150 days. And when does that 150 days expire? Why, today, of course. And knowing that, it's not exactly a surprise that the administration announced a new round of 10%-12.5% tariffs, imposed on 60 different countries, under authority granted by a different section of the Trade Act of 1974, namely Section 301.
In contrast to the wacky 50% Canadian tariffs (which rely on a reading of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930 that has not been tested in court), the authority Trump is using here has withstood a couple of court challenges. Further, Section 301 does not have a built-in expiry, the way that Section 122 does. And rates of 10%-12.5% are not crazypants, the way that 50% is. So, if you squint, yesterday's tariffs could just look like a mature, well-reasoned trade policy.
However, here is the problem with Section 301. Its terms require that the tariffs be used to prevent the import of goods made with forced labor. It seems improbable that many of the countries targeted by the new tariffs, among them Canada and the U.K., are relying on forced labor (certainly no more than the U.S., which still has both sharecropping and, for prisoners, slavery). It also seems improbable that this administration particularly cares about the plight of workers worldwide, or that it has done the due diligence necessary to justify the conclusions it has supposedly reached. Add on top of that the fact that the White House was searching desperately for a way to save the tariffs first imposed in February, and the weight of the evidence is that the White House thinks it's found a loophole, and is exploiting that loophole for all it's worth.
We would guess that someone (probably importers) will file suit against the new tariffs since, unlike the ones from February, these duties could last for a long time. Meanwhile, Trump is already getting an earful from allies around the world, who are tired of being jerked around, and an even bigger (louder?) earful from Republican pooh-bahs, who understand that tariffs are just a tax on American consumers, and who say (correctly) that the tariffs run counter to the "affordability" message the GOP is trying to sell going into the midterms. One of these three prongs of attack (lawsuits, diplomatic pressure, political pressure from Republicans) will probably kill the new tariffs sooner or later, but we have no guess as to which of the three prongs it will be. (Z)