Tariffs have dominated the headlines for the past three months, either because they are happening, they aren’t happening or no one knows if they’re happening. What was once considered an unserious campaign pitch has materialized into a policy that will shape our economy and America’s world standing long into the future. However, these tariffs have many reasons and rationales: Negotiating tactics, revenue sources, bringing back manufacturing to America or making trade more fair for America.
There are a million articles from people who are much more knowledgeable than I am in explaining why the tariffs don’t accomplish these goals, so I won’t get much into that. I’m more interested in why, after economists, policymakers and now markets have shown that the Trump administration tariffs don’t work, they continue to implement them. Without obvious answers, there must be an ulterior motive behind the chaos and uncertainty of Trump’s tariffs.
Trump delayed the reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, which should be acknowledged, but a 10% tariff on all countries and a 125% tariff on China remain in effect. Trump has left a 90-day deadline for countries to negotiate with the US, or these reciprocal tariffs will return. This delay comes after markets dropped nearly 11 points after the tariffs’ initial announcement. Some praised this move as a genius negotiating tactic, while others denounced the chaotic and reckless flip-flopping of the Trump administration.
I interviewed Nels Christiansen, economics professor, to get an economist’s opinion. I asked him why Trump implemented the tariffs despite economists and policy-makers begging him not to do it.
“This is one of the few issues where almost every economist agrees,” Christiansen said. “The idea of trade is that we can exploit the things we are relatively good at and other countries can do the things they’re relatively bad at. It’s not a zero-sum game. We can all be better off … He seems to think he knows better.”
Despite everyone screaming in Trump’s ear to scrap the tariffs and concrete proof in the stock market that tariffs will wreck the U.S. and global economy, Trump doesn’t seem to care. Is it delusions, or does Trump know something we don’t know? There’s a fair amount to be said about tariffs’ effect on domestic politics, which I went to Trinity American politics professor John Hermann to understand.
Hermann said he had recently read an article from Maggie Haberman of the New York Times saying that Trump has been in love with tariffs and the idea of returning to the 1950’s era of American manufacturing for the past 40 years. Trump thinks that losing manufacturing jobs and relying on global supply chains has greatly hurt the country and wants to return to a time period where 25% of Americans worked in intensive factory jobs.
Manufacturing jobs aren’t the only thing Trump wants America to return to, Hermann said.
“It’s a very 1950s perspective,” Hermann said. “It is a time period of women being in the house [and] having a traditional family unit. These are very conservative values.” Trump’s America is a return to the 1950s, both economically and culturally. “That was the heyday of whites. You can see a definite, definitive pattern.”
We can’t go back to the 1950s, however hard we try. Our world is far too globalized to ever return to the period when every country produced its items in the foreseeable future. So could there be a secondary reason for the tariffs? It’s possible that the uncertainty and anxiety tariffs cause to the economy and Americans could be the goal. “That’s exactly what his modus operandi has been. Everything he runs on is a crisis… I do think that his major action is to stoke fear,” Hermann said.
I’ll admit that it’s hard to conceive of, but it’s not out of the question that the Trump administration could be using the tariffs to cause enough fear in the country to justify taking more power for the executive branch. We’ve seen the administration repeatedly push the limits of legal executive action in its few short months. Under no circumstances is it certain, but with an obedient Congress and a weak judicial branch, America may quickly find itself barrelling towards something inconceivable. Even if the tariffs have no motive other than negotiating or bringing back manufacturing to American shores, there’s reason for concern.
