How Should Progressives Respond to Trump’s Tariff Threats?

Introduction

Throughout his campaign and during his first few weeks in office, President Donald Trump has invoked the threat of tariffs on imported products more than perhaps any president in US history. And yet, he has also backed off of many of these threats almost as quickly. During the campaign, Trump promised 20 percent universal baseline tariffs, with higher tariffs of 60 percent for China. In office, his actions have been more modest. On February 1, he announced 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada due to the “extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl”—a policy quickly walked back two days later. On February 10 and 11, he restored and expanded tariffs from his first term on steel and aluminum. And as of today, February 13, he is proposing the “concept of a plan” for so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” where the (typically lower) US tariff rates may eventually be raised to the (typically higher) charges assessed by the US’s trading partners. Whether and how these will actually be imposed is anyone’s guess. A good indication that it may not happen quickly is that his memorandum ordered a study on questions whose scope is so broad that the entirety of the economics profession would struggle to reliably answer them.

Should progressives respond to these threats, and if so, how? Roosevelt Institute scholars have written extensively on tariffs and other trade questions, and in particular how Trump’s unique combination of support for oligarchy, economic nationalism, and selective populism presents both risks and opportunities for progressive economic thinkers and movements. This brief reviews some of that writing. 

While there are indeed ways to use tariffs and trade policy to promote goals like clean energy investment and worker empowerment, the totality of Trump’s policies—including weakening the administrative state and his administration’s announcement that it will (perhaps illegally) attempt to claw back industrial policy funding—will undermine whatever benefit could come from the trade measures. As the record growth in manufacturing construction under President Joe Biden indicated, industrial policy paired with tariffs is far more effective than tariffs alone. Moreover, the fact that Trump is taking these actions via covert executive action is an admission of political weakness: He does not have the support in Congress to roll back landmark policies, such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which are disproportionately benefiting red states and districts. Finally, research has shown that the first Trump administration used selective exemption from tariffs as a way to reward political allies. In a second Trump administration that is eviscerating anti-corruption efforts, bribery and self-dealing could metastasize.