President Donald Trump got a reaming from the Wall Street Journal on Friday over his ongoing "obsession" with imposing as many tariffs as possible.
The Journal's editorial board, while unflinchingly conservative, has nonetheless been waging a low-grade war against the president over his trade policy ever since he resumed office, opposing to his broad-based schemes to tax as many imports as possible — and particularly warning that tariffs imposed right ahead of a critical midterm election can only spell disaster.
"The Administration late Thursday unveiled new tariffs under Section 301 to replace the President’s Section 122 tariffs that were lapsing. These latest duties will affect some 60 economies, hitting nearly all U.S. imports, with rates from 10% to 12.5%, and they come on top of a slew of other border taxes," wrote the board.
The Supreme Court may have killed his first tariff scheme under emergency powers — but he's now using a number of other laws, including Section 301, which means he is effectively accusing Canada and the European Union of importing goods made with forced labor, Section 232; which is a national security provision Trump is applying to generic medicines, cars, furniture, steel, aluminum, and semiconductors; and Section 338, a never-before-used section of the controversial 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act.
Trump, the board lamented, "doesn’t seem to care about the damage since tariff costs are dispersed across businesses, consumers and workers. Customs duties have raised $163 billion in the current fiscal year through June, which excludes some $70 billion in emergency-tariff refunds. That’s a big tax increase."
And ultimately, the board warned, Trump's party is going to take a hit at the ballot box.
"Americans remain unhappy about the economy, and higher prices are a big reason," the board concluded. Even if they don't know the exact figures, voters "know that tariffs are adding to their pain ... [and] Republicans could pay the price in November."