After President Trump’s first year in office, political observers marveled at how much he governed like a conventional Republican, in substance if not style. But if 2017 was defined by tax cuts, deregulation, conservative judges, and a failed bid to repeal Obamacare; tariffs, trade wars, and the more distinctly “Trumpist” elements of the president’s agenda have become priorities in recent weeks.
Trump rejected a deal on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that did not enact new limits on family-based immigration and abolish the diversity visa lottery, among other things, even after showing flexibility during a bipartisan White House meeting. His administration unveiled an infrastructure package.
But the area where Trump has most squarely taken on his own party is tariffs and trade. Trump’s announcement of sweeping new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum clearly caught congressional Republicans off guard. It appears to have knocked top economic adviser Gary Cohn out of the administration while protectionists Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and trade policy director Peter Navarro are ascendant.
“He may be a globalist, but I still like him,” Trump joked at Cohn’s expense during the latter’s final Cabinet meeting last week. The president added of Cohn, “He’s not quite as strong on those tariffs.”
Supply-sider and free-trader Larry Kudlow is widely rumored to be on the short list for Cohn’s replacement, however.
“Our position on this front hasn’t changed,” press secretary Sarah Sanders said at Monday’s White House briefing. “The president has been clear for quite some time what his position is and what his authority is under the 232 statute, and we’re moving forward.”
The economic rationale of Trump’s moves is hotly debated, but the politics are clear. Republicans are worried about losing a Pennsylvania special election in which Democrat Conor Lamb has arguably sounded more Trumpian on these issues than GOP candidate Rick Saccone.
Meanwhile, Trump has been getting praise from unusual quarters. Democratic operative and liberal commentator Krystal Ball penned an op-ed headlined, “I hate Trump, but I love these tariffs.” She wrote, “If we spent more time on pro-worker policies and less time feeding the macroeconomic demands of our corporate overlords, maybe we wouldn’t have President Donald Trump.”
“Tariffs won’t start a trade war, there’s 435 of them in place today to fight trade cheaters,” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka tweeted. “People may not like how Pres Trump rolled these out, but I applaud him for trying.”
All the way back during the campaign, there were questions about whether “Trumpism” was a coherent governing philosophy with real policy implications or simply personality-driven. Yet Trump’s trade protectionism has probably been his most consistent public policy view, and it has persisted even after nationalist and populist advisers like former chief strategist Steve Bannon have left the White House.
During a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump attacked NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. Clinton was subdued in her trade-related retorts — “Well, that’s your opinion,” she said in response to Trump calling NAFTA “one of the worst things that ever happened in the manufacturing industry” — and declined to defend TPP while assailing her opponent’s mainstream Republican economic views.
“There are different views for what’s good for our country, our economy, and our leadership in the world. And I think it’s important to look at what we need to do to get the economy going again,” Clinton said after Trump lambasted TPP. “That’s why I said, new jobs with rising incomes, investments, not in more tax cuts that would add $5 trillion to the debt.”
Trump won the presidential election by turning industrial states red for the first time since the 1980s while holding the reliably-Republican states. It might be difficult coalition to keep intact, but it is also more proven strategy for Electoral College success than those offered by Trump’s critics within the GOP.
Clinton has continued to disparage Trump Country over a year later. “If you look at the map of the U.S., there’s all that red in the middle where Trump won,” she said, later adding, “I won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product. “So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward.”
The ostensibly backwards-looking states that decided the election all voted twice for President Barack Obama. “There’s still an opportunity with the way Democrats are talking,” said one Trump-friendly Republican strategist.
Most elected Republicans, however, fear that as that the tariffs begin to bite, it will negate the positive impact of tax cuts, which Vice President Mike Pence and pro-Trump groups like America First Policies have been busily touting.
It’s going to be a complicated midterm election year.
