In Trump’s world, every problem can be solved with tariffs
President Donald Trump has described the ongoing Supreme Court case over the legality of his use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on more than 100 countries as a matter of “literally, LIFE OR DEATH for our Country.” Certainly the case, in which oral arguments were heard at the Court on Wednesday, has profound implications for executive power and, as my colleague Ian Millhiser explained earlier this week, will be a key indicator of the court’s willingness to rein in the administration.
Based on the hostile questions from the conservative justices on Wednesday, the court appears likely to rule against Trump — a potentially serious blow to the administration, and not only its economic policies.
Trump is a self-described “tariff man,” and tariffs are rivaled perhaps only by mass deportations as the signature policy of his second term. Trump loves tariffs in large part for their traditional function: protecting US industries from foreign competition and raising government revenue, and is unpersuaded by the arguments of most economists that US consumers will ultimately bear the costs of these measures.
But less noticed is the degree to which tariffs have also become the centerpiece of Trump’s foreign and security policy. It sometimes seems as if there’s hardly a problem in the world that Trump doesn’t think can be solved with more tariffs.
Just this week, for instance, the Financial Times reported that US officials have been waging a campaign of intimidation to block a new treaty on shipping emissions, threatening new tariffs against countries that support the agreement.
Trump has used tariffs to address broad geopolitical challenges, including levying them against countries like India that buy the oil Russia uses to fund its war in Ukraine. And he has used them for his personal grievances, like threatening a 50 percent tariff on Brazil over the prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally.
Trump has also used tariff threats to assert dominance over smaller countries, like Colombia, which attracted his ire in the first weeks of his term by refusing to accept deportation flights on military planes. And he has used them against some of America’s largest trading partners, like the tariffs he slapped on China, Mexico, and Canada over their alleged failure to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US.
Tariffs have even been part of Trump’s quest for a Nobel Peace Prize: Cambodia and Thailand were told they could not negotiate a tariff relief deal until they pulled back from a deadly border dispute.
