SEATTLE — When Donald Trump finally unveiled his trade tariffs he announced them in a way one might have expected – smugly, confusingly, and by cherry picking the facts.
There was one rate for China, another for Britain, one for the European Union – “they’re very tough traders” – and a different rate for India. Indeed, it appeared there was a different number for every country the US trades with.
The president had been talking about imposing “reciprocal tariffs” since his return to the Oval Office, a stubbornness that infuriated and confounded allies and neighbours such as Canada, and sent stock markets plunging.
In theory, Trump and his team, of what White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said were experienced experts, had been working on the roll-out for some time.
As it was, when Trump appeared in the Rose Garden, clutching a chart that listed different countries and what tariffs would be imposed, the president appeared like an excited school boy, thrilled to show his homework off to the class.
“This will be the golden age of America,” he said. “It’s coming back, and we’re going to come back very strongly.”
There were cheers from the usual suspects, including Vice President JD Vance, known to dislike Europe and who has been the president’s most ardent attack dog, be it against Nato, be it in trying to take control of Greenland, or indeed the tariffs, that many experts believe risk triggering huge damage to the economies not just of America’s trading partners but to America’s own.
Tariffs are taxes, paid by importers as items enter the country, and then are most usually passed onto the consumer.
More often than not they lead to higher prices at home, which means Americans will pay thousands more dollars for everything from cars to food.
And if other countries retaliate with higher tariffs on the US, it will trigger a trade war of series of trade wars, that will mean higher pries for everyone.
Donald Trump signs executive orders imposing tariffs on imported goods during a ‘Make America Wealthy Again’ trade announcement (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)Trump hopes the impact will lead to a a boost in domestic manufacturing, something that was – as he pointed out – devastated by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed between the the US, Canada and Mexico in 1994.
Trump said this was “the worst trade deal ever made”, but he renegotiated the terms with the two countries during his first term.
It is possible he’s forgotten that, just as he might forget the harm he caused America’s farmers when he launched tariffs against China, which hit back with their own taxes on soy and other US agricultural produce.
Trump had to spend $16bn bailing out such individuals in 2019 who would otherwise have lost everything.
In his speech he referred to them as “great farmers and ranchers, who are brutalised by nations all over the world”.
In his three months back in the Oval Office, Trump has already torn up the strategic alliance that was established after the end of World War II, and shown he is happy for America to have a less global role.
Much has been written about him being inspired economically by the actions of William McKinley, who served as the country’s 25 president, and was an ardent supporter of tariffs.
Yet that so-called “Gilded Age” existed in a very world, where countries were not as interconnected as they are now and where producing an iPhone involves products from 43 countries. Trump wants to turn back the clock but it is far from clear he can do so.
More pressingly, Trump was elected in large part because voters believed that he rather than Kamala Harris would do a better job at lowering costs and combatting inflation.
To date, Trump has only created more uncertainty for the very people who voted for him. And if he presses ahead with planned tax cuts for the wealthy, while the tariffs sit in place, he risks doing even more harm.
No Republican politician wants to heading into the midterm elections of 2026 against the backdrop of a bad economy.
Trump has truly gambled big. We will very quickly see if the move backfires.
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