Trump's Impulsive Trade War Is Lousy Economics and Worrisome Politics

[EasyAce]

President's hasty new "trade war" will damage the American economy while continuing his process of removing tariff-reduction from two-party politics
By Matt Welch
http://reason.com/blog/2018/03/02/trumps-impulsive-trade-war-politics-will

Huh. So it turns out when you elect an impulsive, anger-prone mercantilist who campaigned and won the presidency on a platform to stop "letting" America's international trading partners get away with "murder," he might impulsively launch a trade war without so much as properly consulting his own staff . . .

. . . NBC News (among several other outlets) is reporting that the president's plan was hatched on the fly, in part due to his anger about non-related scandals plaguing the White House . . .

. . . It is not new for a modern U.S. president to impose protectionist tariffs. Barack Obama did it with Chinese tires, costing American consumers an estimated $1.1 billion in return for preserving 1,200 jobs in the domestic tire industry. And as Steve Chapman has noted in these pages, "When George W. Bush imposed duties on foreign steel, experts concluded, he destroyed some 200,000 jobs in other sectors—exceeding the total employment of the American steel industry."

Trump's moves, coming on the heels of his recent tariffs on Chinese solar panels and imported washing machines, threaten to be far more ruinous . . . If Trump really wants his trade war, Trump will get his trade war, even if every member of Congress was to spontaneously agree with Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) that "

No trade war has ever worked." This was always a central objection to candidate Trump, one that many people who have long supported free trade found less persuasive than their antipathy toward his competitors.

Is there any possible silver lining to this lousy news? Probably not, but MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle (whose show I guest on frequently) has reported from sources that Trump may change his mind if the stock market continues to tank. So it's possible that the president's impulsiveness may yet save us from the president's impulsiveness. That is what passes for economic policy hope in a Washington run by the Republican Party.