Brehm: Thank goodness Trump paused his destructive trade war

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of material from 11 contributing columnists, along with other commentary online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

Good sense finally won the day when President Donald Trump paused new tariffs on most countries for 90 days on Wednesday. While Republicans should not have had so much reluctance to tell Mr. Trump that his misguided ideas on tariffs should have been scrapped sooner, it’s fully understandable that they’ll decline such a lecture from Democrats given their record in speaking truth to party heads.

Just months into Joe Biden’s presidency, concerns about the commander in chief’s mental fitness began to grow. In 2021, he stumbled three times down the stairs of Air Force One, fell asleep at a climate change conference and increasingly became unable to coherently answer simple questions without the aid of a teleprompter.

Nevertheless, Democrats held the line, refusing to entertain what we all saw on television: that Biden was no longer up to the world’s toughest job. Rather than urge the president to keep his promise to serve only a single term, most Democrats mindlessly cheered when the octogenarian announced his disastrous run for re-election.

When Congressman Dean Phillips courageously did not go along, the party relegated him into the political wilderness. But those that displayed blind faithfulness to the infirm president were rewarded. Even after Biden’s calamitous debate, Gov. Tim Walz, craving the national spotlight, dishonestly assured us: “Yes, he’s fit for office ... The governors have his back.” And thanks to his Faustian bargain, Walz got the fame he wanted.

In the end, the Democratic Party’s demand for total loyalty to one single way of thinking helped propel Donald Trump back to the White House. And it branded them as untrustworthy, which explains in part why the party now polls more unfavorably than ever before.

What if Democrats had listened to Congressman Phillips and engaged in an honest debate about their incumbent president? As the poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote: “For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’ ”

But instead of avoiding this painful political history, Republicans might now be on a path to repeating it. In too many GOP circles today, absolute fealty to President Trump on just about everything is becoming compulsory at startling levels. Republican lawmakers risk MAGA primary opponents and political retribution for even the gentlest pushback against the White House. That isn’t wise. Strong parties welcome and even encourage dissenting points of view and recognize that ideological diversity is necessary to build lasting national coalitions. And understand that, other than the Almighty, no one is right all the time.

While President Trump deserves tremendous credit for securing our southern border with rapid speed, cutting wasteful Washington spending, eliminating toxic DEI programs and returning some sanity to gender issues in this country, more Republicans should be freer to protest his other, less intelligent initiatives, such as the panoply of international tariffs he introduced last week that are now on ice. Leaders are strengthened when their allies challenge them from time to time. And their agendas can be improved with constructive criticism from political bedfellows.

To be sure, an American trade reset in some areas makes sense. We should be going hard after China, a country that has actively undermined the United States. China is basically at war with us, and our trade and diplomatic policies should reflect that. And there are certain traded goods, such as European autos, where matching tariffs percent-for-percent might be smart. There too are other strategic trade negotiations to be had to ensure a more even global playing field for American workers and exporters.

But I see nothing conservative or coherent about the president’s tariff plan, which arbitrarily raises duties on practically every country on earth — even our most profitable trading partners — and represents the largest peacetime tax increase in American history. This should not just be paused but abandoned altogether.

What’s particularly unsettling is that all of this was done without input from Congress. We Republicans should stand for, above all else, fidelity to the Constitution, which requires (in Article I, Section 7) that all laws for raising revenue must originate in the House of Representatives — not the White House Rose Garden — and be approved by both bodies of Congress. When Biden pushed the limits of his constitutional authority, which he did regularly, we demanded he be reined in. The expectation should be the same for Trump. Voters don’t respect expedient inconsistency.

In substance, the president touts his tariffs as being reciprocal. We charge them what they charge us. Seems fair and like something this free trader could get behind. But that’s dishonest marketing and not what they are. The formula used to calculate the new Trump rates actually has nothing to do with existing tariffs imposed on U.S. goods at all. Instead, the new tariff is the trade deficit we have with a particular country (which can be a good thing for a wealthy country like ours in certain circumstances and a sign of our economic strength) divided by the amount of goods America imports from it. The tariffs then levied are half of that ratio.

That is why our ally Israel, which no longer imposes any tariffs on the American goods it imports, would face under the president’s proposal a very much non-reciprocal 17% tariff on the products it exports to the United States. And even if the U.S. has a trade surplus with a particular country, which it does with over 100, a minimum 10% tariff would be slapped on the goods it sells that American consumers want to buy anyway. This is not fair trade. It is protectionism, which has always meant less growth and prosperity for countries that implement it. President Trump promised to make America rich again. He should remember international trade has.

Could it be that all of this is just a Trumpian negotiating tactic? That the president was bluffing — and this pause will be permanent? Maybe. And if so, good. But damage has been done. Negotiating logical new trade deals in a strong but respectful manner could have achieved much and would not have spooked anyone, but President Trump’s heavy-handed tariff regime has wrought chaos on the world economy. The administration has created a new demon — one of unpredictability. Sometimes that can be advantageous, as I am sure it was during Trump’s New York real estate days, but it’s generally not when it comes to international markets.

Investment requires stability and confidence. And it is likely going to wait for those things to return — while capital sits on the sidelines. No company wants to make significant supply chain decisions during a time of turmoil when tariff rates are being arbitrarily set and reset by an erratic president. No CEO will want to build a factory before she has assurance that some semblance of certainty has returned to international trade rules. In this disordered environment, a business decision that makes sense today may not next week, so passing on it altogether may be the most prudent option. It is unfortunately going to take a long time for things to calm down, and the president has a lot of work to do to reduce the fervor.

President Trump has many solid initiatives I support wholeheartedly, but his irrational tariff regime is about as bad of an idea as there is. And Republicans need to stand up to him on it and make sure it ultimately ends up in the White House dustbin. Like a functional family, strong political parties should not be afraid to argue amongst each other from time to time and hold ourselves accountable when we go sideways on something. That should apply to Mr. Trump, too. His political fortunes, as well as those of our party, will benefit from more Republicans insisting the White House embrace a more sensible trade policy going forward. But more importantly, the American people and economy will as well.