The “Experts” Are Wrong Again On Trump’s Tariff Agenda

From the moment it became clear Donald Trump would become the 47th President of the United States, perhaps no policy issue has elicited as much handwringing, panic, and doomsday predictions from the “expert” class as Trump’s sweeping tariff agenda. Despite the mounting hysteria, these predictions are not only factually misguided, but also willfully overlook America’s rich history of successful tariffs and protectionist trade policies.

Without interruption, the corporate media, the Democrat Party establishment, and Old Guard Republicans have issued a series of apocalyptic forecasts that could befall the American people if Trump’s tariff agenda is successfully implemented—from increased prices on consumers to soaring grocery and drug costs and outright “chaos” and “economic nightmare.”

Trump’s pro-tariff campaign platform in 2016 elicited similar predictions from many purported economic experts and free trade absolutists who feared a departure from what was then conventional Republican trade policy. But not only did Trump’s trade platform help unleash an economic boom, it also signaled a return to the beginnings of the American conservative movement rather than a departure from it.

From 1790 to 1914, tariffs made up the main source of federal revenue and served as an indispensable component of American foreign policy. In fact, the first major piece of legislation passed in the United States after the ratification of the Constitution was the Tariff Act of 1789, which was enactedin large part to protect the emerging American manufacturing industry.

As Robert Lighthizer, former U.S. trade representative under President Trump (who is also expected to have a major role in the second Trump administration) observed in the early 2010s, “For most of its 157-year history, the Republican Party has been the party of building domestic industry by using trade policy to promote U.S. exports and fend off unfairly traded imports. American conservatives have had that view for even longer.” From Alexander Hamilton to Presidents William McKinley and Calvin Coolidge, tariffs and other protectionist economic policies have long been defining elements of the American conservative tradition.

In 2016, after decades of economic failures wrought by a rigid Republican commitment to unfettered international trade, the Trump administration’s tariff-based approach sought to return the party to its roots. As Trump understood, tariffs are effective not only in that they force other countries to pay for foreign imports, but also in that they bring manufacturing back to American shores and protect the economic interests of America’s working class.

WALK BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT, ARMOR UP DAILY & PUT YOUR WHOLE TRUST IN GOD, NOT MAN!!!!!

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Love,