Our view: Trump’s tariffs boomerang on U.S. farmers
When the Trump administration announced Tuesday that it plans to spend $12 billion to aid farmers harmed by its trade polices, the outrage was palpable. Lawmakers of both parties called it welfare, a bailout and other derogatory terms.
The announcement seemed to encapsulate the damage of President Donald Trump’s misguided trade wars, which are inviting retaliatory tariffs that harm exporting industries.
Farmers need “emergency” government assistance to deal with an emergency of Trump’s own making. Iconic American companies such as General Motors and Harley-Davidson are warning that tariffs will harm their earnings.
In part to deal with the pushback, Trump on Wednesday announced an effort to reach a broad trade agreement with the European Union, a deal that could prove difficult given the EU’s divergent views on data privacy, antitrust, genetically modified organisms and a host of other issues.
What the announcement does not do is undo the harm Trump is doing on trade. Eighteen months into office, Trump has turned productive farmers into supplicants, pushed government deep into the business of picking winners and losers, and shamelessly politicized the spending of taxpayer money.
“This is becoming more and more like a Soviet-type of economy here,” complained Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. “Commissars deciding who’s going to be granted waivers. Commissars in the administration figuring out how they’re going to sprinkle around benefits.”
But Johnson and other Trump critics in the GOP offer only words. Words are fine. They make sounds and convey meaning. But in politics, they are a pale imitation of actions.
If the Republican-controlled House and Senate are truly upset with Trump’s trade policies, they can do something about it. All of Trump’s tariffs — those on steel and aluminum and those on a wide array of Chinese goods — have been imposed under congressional authority.
What Congress grants, Congress can take away.
The Founding Fathers put tariffs on the same level as taxes as important congressional powers. But over the years, Congress has run from those responsibilities, passing laws transferring tariff-levying power to presidents.
Its handiwork includes the Trade Act of 1974 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. But its biggest one is the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which gives presidents the power to act in the case of national security threats, which Trump defines to mean just about anything, including imported automobiles.
Congress could pass a law now that rescinds the Trump tariffs and narrows or eliminates the powers Trump claims. This would require a veto-proof majorities in both chambers. But if lawmakers are half as concerned as they claim to be, that should not be a problem.
The time for lobbing words at Trump is over. If his approach to trade is so bad — which it is — it is time to bring about its end.