Dear President Trump | Power Line

Dear President Trump: I’m so old that I remember when you bragged — rightly — about the impact of your pro-growth policies as they were reflected in the stock market before the China virus hit. Indeed, I was your guest at the October 2019 rally you held at Target Center in downtown Minneapolis. I was among the 20,000 supporters who cheered you on wildly that night. Were it not for the China virus, I don’t have any doubt that you would have carried Minnesota in the 2020 election.

This week the stock market had its worst days since the China virus crashed the economy in 2020. This time around, however, you did the damage with the announcement of your tariff regime. You enjoyed minding Mr. Market in 2019. Now you seem to be indifferent, or to think you know better, or to think everything will turn out well some time down the road. Those of living on fixed incomes or mandatory retirement withdrawals are feeling the pain and others will soon enough. Perhaps I’m misguided, but I think your plan to restructure the global economy might better be deferred until your third term.

You have imposed a baseline 10 percent tariff on imports that takes effect today. This is a massive tax increase that has bypassed the constitutional method of raising revenues. These tariffs took effect this week. If you think the 10 percent tariff is good public policy, make the case and persuade Congress to adopt it. Don’t do it Obama/Biden style.

You have imposed an additional set of tariffs on countries with whom we run a trade surplus. In some cases, these countries have done no more than sell us more goods that they bought from us — and they have done so on a level playing field, to borrow the cliché. Unlike the regime that protects the secrets of the China virus, they have done us no wrong. On the contrary.

You call the tariff regime you have created “reciprocal.” Unless you deem all trade imbalances unfair per se, however, it isn’t so. Take the case of Israel. Where did that extra 7 percent tariff come from? It came from a failure to understand of the benefits of competitive advantage.

By the way, that’s a higher tariff rate than you imposed on Iran. As Eric Boehm observes, the Islamic Republic got hit with a 10 percent tariff. That’s crazy. These tariffs are scheduled to go into effect on April 9. Let’s call the whole thing off.

You have imposed the tariff regime as an emergency measure. It looks like you are creating an emergency, not rectifying one.

Very truly yours…