Trump’s Agenda: Tariffs

While campaigning for a second term in office, President-elect Donald Trump declared “tariff” to be his “favorite word” and “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” He regularly said he would use tariffs to raise federal revenue and increase jobs and manufacturing in the United States. For example, at an August campaign rally, Trump suggested broadly placing tariffs on imports from overseas, saying, “We’re going to have 10 to 20% tariffs on foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years.” About a year before that, during a Fox Business interview, Trump said: “I do like the 10% [tariff] for everybody. The problem with the 10% is that some countries are much bigger abusers than others.” In addition, in February, when asked in another Fox Business appearance to confirm a report that he was considering a 60% tariff on imports from China, he said, “No, I would say maybe it’s going to be more than that.” He also has proposed enacting legislation requiring commensurate retaliatory tariffs if any nation puts a tariff on U.S. exports that is higher than the tariff imposed by the U.S. on the same products. Multiple analyses do show that increasing tariffs, or applying new...