Tom Cotton breaks with Trump on tariffs

The Arkansas Republican is among Trump’s most dependable partners on Capitol Hill, aligning himself in particular with the president on immigration issues. But he disagrees with Trump’s plan to hit almost all countries — ally and adversary alike — with steel and aluminum tariffs, warning that it could harm the U.S. economy and raise the price of consumer staples.

“I think that would be overbroad, it would probably backfire. It would probably hurt more downstream users of aluminum and steel than it would help the steel and aluminum producing sectors of our economy,” Cotton said in an interview with Behind Closed Doors, a Washington Examiner podcast.

Cotton, often in sync with Trump on the populist elements of the president’s agenda, is notably with his Republican colleagues on trade. Like them, he worries about the possibility of a trade war as other countries retaliate, and is concerned that the economic growth they foresee because of the $1.4 trillion tax overhaul could be undermined by tariffs.

“I am concerned about those unintended consequences of a widespread tariff on steel and aluminum,” Cotton said. “The money that’s going back to into the pockets of workers right now because of the tax cuts might end up going into the pockets of people who use and produce steel.”

Trump last week surprised Republicans in Congress with his proposal to levy onerous tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to compensate for unfair trade practices that have undercut the prices of the domestically manufactured metals, diminishing capacity and costing Americans jobs.

The president considers China the most egregious offender.

But he has argued that narrowly targeting Beijing wouldn’t solve the problem because the Chinese sell steel to other countries at artificially low prices, which in turn resell it in the U.S. Trump also suggested the threatened tariffs were leverage in talks with Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The White House has since signaled those countries might be exempt.

The departure from the West Wing of ardent free trader Gary Cohn, Trump’s chief economic adviser, and rise in influence of protectionist trade czar Peter Navarro, suggests Trump is committed to tariffs. But with the details in flux, Cotton said he was reserving final judgment until he sees the fine print.

“The president’s rightly concerned, as our most major industrialized countries, about China’s mercantilist and protectionist policies. China’s got vast overcapacity in the steel industry, and that didn’t just happened through the free market. It happened through Chinese intervention in their markets,” Cotton said.

“The president’s right to be concerned about those activities. If we want to target China for its malign economic actions, we should target China,” he added.

The full Behind Closed Doors podcast interview with Cotton will air early next week.