If the president’s approach is successful and brings down tariffs, who can complain? Certainly not free traders.
“April 2nd, 2025, will go down as one of the most important days in modern American history.” — White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
We have no doubt that Leavitt’s prediction will come true. Whether it’s remembered for being a success or as Smoot-Hawley 2.0 remains to be seen.
“It is going to work,” Leavitt said. “And the president has a brilliant team of advisers who have been studying these issues for decades.”
That’s a bit of an odd boast, given that the economists who have been studying tariffs and trade policy for decades had long ago decided that tariffs are a sledgehammer approach that rarely work as intended, that they are a wildly expensive way to create jobs, don’t spur economic growth, protect uncompetitive U.S. firms, and are an ineffective diplomatic tool.
National Review recently published an article tracing papers from the Heritage Foundation going back to the early 1980s arguing for the benefits of free trade. The article is meant as a criticism of Heritage President Kevin Roberts’ recent defense of Trump’s tariff strategy.
But a separate article in National Review also admits that other countries routinely impose far higher tariffs on U.
