National Review
Not at all chastened by the failure of his tariffs when in office, Trump seeks a much larger trade war if he becomes president again.
The tariffs on China have not changed Chinese behavior, but they have raised prices for Americans, and the retaliation from China has harmed American exporters, especially in agriculture.
Biden thinks they’re a good idea and has extended them—which should at least be a warning that maybe they aren’t a good idea.
Yet Trump says he wants to go even further, with a minimum 10 percent tariff on all imports, completely belying any of the “strategic” justifications for “targeted” tariffs that protectionists invoke when they want to sound sophisticated.
He now says he wants tariffs to replace the income tax. The individual income tax raised about $2 trillion last year, and total U.S. imports were valued at around $3.5 trillion. Squeezing $2 trillion in revenue from a $3.5 trillion tax base is economically impossible, and attempting to do so would be economically destructive.
Trump’s biggest legislative accomplishment, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, was a solid conservative tax reform that lowered rates and broadened the base, making the tax code less economically distortive. He should seek to build on that, not undermine it with Smoot-Hawley 2.0.
