Trump's Tariffs Are Likely To Outlast Him

To a nation staggering under debt, tariff revenue may come to look like a less politically painful fix than higher income taxes and limits on Social Security payments.

- Clive Crook

Effective opposition to US President Donald Trump's trade policies has yet to pop its head above the parapet. Old-school pro-trade types are sidelined, consoling themselves, perhaps, that the protectionist turn will reverse once the costs are clearer. Be patient, we tell ourselves: This, too, shall pass.

Will it? I don't doubt that the policies will fail. By itself, however, that won't restore the pre-Trump era.

The reason is not, or not only, our diminishing capacity for good government. I'm also not assuming that Make America Great Again (Maga) economics will endure because Democrats will keep on losing elections.

Depending on what happens in the midterms, and in 2028, the new economic order might be modified, but it's unlikely to be abandoned.

Now that Republicans are converted to the cause, the post-neoliberal core of Maga economics – use trade barriers to reshape the economy – commands a broad US consensus.

The White House has encountered setbacks in the courts, and critics rightly say the execution has been a shambles, but it has many levers to pull on tariffs, and the purpose is widely endorsed. Support for the liberal trading order founded after 1945 has evaporated.

When the costs of the new protectionism become more visible, the quarrel will be between Trump-style trade warriors and opponents who aim to do the same but more skillfully.

The President has redefined normal trade policy. Talk of "Taco" (Trump Always Chickens Out) is misleading. True, the administration has veered back and forth on tariffs, one day threatening extraordinarily high barriers, the next, after financial market blowback, lowering or pausing them while it negotiates.