“”Former President Donald Trump’s proposals to impose a universal tariff of 20 percent and an additional tariff on Chinese imports of at least 60 percent would spike the average tariff rate on all imports to highs not seen since the Great Depression,” warns Erica York of the Tax Foundation.
Trump has actually been a little vague on the size of his universal tariff, first floating it at 10 percent while allowing “it may be more than that,” and then upping the ante to 20 percent. Either way, it’s a cost that ends up being largely paid by Americans in terms of higher retail prices and more expensive imported parts and materials for domestic manufacturing.
The Trump administration’s 2018 “tariffs resulted in higher prices for a wide variety of goods that U.S. consumers and businesses purchase,” the Tax Foundation’s Alex Durante and Alex Muresianu concluded.
Even when tariffs don’t directly affect the cost of imported goods purchased by consumers, they still drive up the prices of many things made in the U.S. The Cato Institute’s Pierre Lemieux points out that “a tariff on an input (say, steel) is paid by the American importer who will typically pass it down the supply chain to his customers and eventually to the consumers of the final good (say, a car).” Instead of boosting domestic production, that can do harm, instead.
“For manufacturing employment, a small boost from the import protection effect of tariffs is more than offset by larger drags from the effects of rising input costs and retaliatory tariffs,” Federal Reserve Board economists found when they researched the 2018 tariffs.”
“Check the U.S. Constitution, and you’ll see that Article 1, Section 8 clearly gives Congress sole authority over “Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises.” Unfortunately, Congress traded away much of that power during the 20th century, beginning in the aftermath of the Great Depression—which was considerably worsened by a series of tariffs passed by Congress—and continuing with various laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s, as the Cato report details.
In theory, handing over those powers made sense. Lawmakers were more likely to be influenced by parochial interests and would favor protectionism that benefited some local industry, even if it came at the expense of the nation’s economy as a whole. Presidents, it was assumed, would take a more expansive view of the benefits of trade and would use those powers to reduce barriers like tariffs.
For a long time, that was true. It no longer is. Both Trump and President Joe Biden have favored protectionism, and have faced scant opposition from Congress or the courts.
If Trump returns to the White House in 2025, he would assume huge power over the flow of goods into the United States “without substantial procedural or institutional safeguards” due to the “broad and ambiguous language” included in many of those trade laws passed decades ago, Packard and Lincicome write.
The tariffs that Trump imposed during his term in office took advantage of many of those same powers.”
“The Republican presidential nominee’s threat to impose new tariffs on nearly all imports into the United States would make video game consoles 40 percent more expensive, according to an analysis published this month by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), an industry group best known for its annual Las Vegas conference showcasing the latest tech for home and personal use.
The report assumes that Trump can carry out his threat to hit all imports from China with a 60 percent tariff, along with a baseline tariff of 10 percent or 20 percent on all other imports. (Trump has been unclear about which level he’d prefer, and recently suggested a “thousand percent tariff.”)
If that happens, the retail price of video game consoles will increase by nearly $250, according to the CTA. Retail price would also grow for laptops (up $357), tablets (up $201), smartphones (up $213), and televisions (up $48).”
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“The theory behind Trump’s push for more tariffs is that making imports more expensive will spur more domestic manufacturing. Instead of importing Xboxes and PlayStations from China, those products would be made in the United States, his supporters claim.
But hold on. If Trump’s tariffs are sufficient to drive consumer technology manufacturing out of China, those jobs won’t all shift to the United States—they’ll go to other countries instead. If that happens, consumers in the U.S. will still bear the cost of the universal tariffs on their game consoles and smartphones.
CTA does project a 31 percent increase in domestic production of video game consoles—but that would not be enough to offset the other consequences. Ultimately, the group comcludes, the economy would shrink by an estimated $4.9 billion, due to the combination of higher costs and lower consumer spending power.
The vastly increased availability and affordability of tech like TVs and video game systems shows what free trade can achieve. Americans should be cautious about taking it for granted.”
“Trump fans applauded when he said he’ll eliminate taxes on tips. Then Harris proposed that, too. Her audience applauded. Trump then proposed not taxing overtime. More applause.
But narrow tax exemptions are bad policy.
In my new video, economist Allison Schrager explains how they create nasty, unintended consequences.
“No one likes tipping,” says Schrager, “but all of a sudden, you’ll have to pay tips for everything.…More people will be paid in tips.””
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“Trump’s proposal to eliminate tax on overtime would reduce hiring.
“Employers may hire fewer people so they can give more overtime to employees they have already,” says Schrager.”
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“rent control is destructive. “Sounds really good,” says Schrager. “But all it means is that people are less inclined to rent to you.”
“Why would you enter a market where it seems like the government is actively trying to hurt you?” Adds Mercatus Center economist Salim Furth. “You’re providing an essential service, something human beings need to live, and the government views you as a hostile outsider. I wouldn’t want to bring any service into a market like that.”
Argentina’s new libertarian president just scrapped rent controls. The supply of rental apartments doubled, and prices declined by 40 percent! That’s good policy.
But Harris proposes the opposite!”
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“Trump’s (and Joe Biden’s) tariffs don’t just punish China, they reduce choice and raise prices in America.
“Free trade is good!” says Schrager. “It brings lower prices, making our own industries more dynamic, raising our income.”
“But trade does take away some Americans’ jobs,” I point out.
“But it creates a lot of other new jobs,” she replies.
It sure does. More and better jobs than those lost through trade.”
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“She proposes giving “first-time homebuyers” $25,000. Again, her fans applaud.
Schrager explains, “free” money from government doesn’t increase the supply of homes. When every buyer has $25,000 more, “they just bid up prices even higher!””
“Since Trump’s three appointees gave Republicans a supermajority on the Supreme Court, the Republican justices have behaved as though they are all going down a GOP wishlist, abolishing the right to an abortion, implementing Republican priorities like a ban on affirmative action, and even holding that Trump has broad immunity from prosecution for crimes he committed using his official powers while in office. To be clear, right-wing litigants are not winning every case they bring before the justices, but on issues where the various factions within the Republican Party have reached consensus, the Republican justices reliably align with that consensus.
The lower courts, meanwhile, have become incubators for far-right policy ideas that often go too far even for a majority of the members of the current Supreme Court. Think, for example, of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s failed attempt to ban the abortion drug mifepristone. Or an astonishing decision by three Trump judges that declared the entire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) unconstitutional. Both of these lower court decisions were rejected by the Supreme Court.
That there are some positions too far right even for many Republican members of the Supreme Court is a reminder of the diversity that exists among Trump’s judges. Some, like Justices Brett Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett, are fully committed to using the courts to implement a long list of Republican ideas. But this cohort of judges also rejects at least some right-wing legal theories that would have catastrophic consequences for the country.
Both Kavanaugh and Barrett, for example, rejected the legal attack on the CFPB. They joined an opinion explaining that the plaintiffs’ legal theory had no basis in constitutional text or history, but they may also have been motivated by the fact that this theory could have triggered an economic depression if it had prevailed. Kavanaugh and Barrett also backed Trump’s claim that he has broad immunity from criminal prosecution for crimes committed in office, but on the same day they rejected a Texas law that would have given that state’s Republican legislature extraordinary authority to dictate what the media must print.
The other faction of Trump’s judges is more nihilistic. They include Kacsmaryk, who has turned his Amarillo, Texas, courtroom into a printing press for court orders advancing far-right causes. The nihilistic faction also includes judges like Aileen Cannon, the Trump judge who has presided over one of Trump’s criminal trials (and behaved like one of his defense attorneys), much of the far-right United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and Trump Supreme Court appointment Justice Neil Gorsuch.”
“In reality, Project 2025, an initiative put together last year by the right-wing Heritage Foundation to plan for the next GOP administration, was shaped by longtime close allies of Trump. Detailed planning for a second Trump term agenda along these lines is very real, and though the Project 2025 initiative itself has seemingly fizzled out, other groups have picked up the slack.
Furthermore, many of Project 2025’s key proposals — to centralize presidential power, crack down on unauthorized immigrants, deprioritize fighting climate change, and eliminate the Department of Education — are fully and openly supported by Trump.
Yet Trump’s intentions are less clear on a vitally important issue where Project 2025 made some particularly extreme proposals: abortion.
The project’s plan called for using presidential power to aggressively restrict abortions in several ways. Trump, wary of these proposals’ unpopularity, has said during the campaign that he won’t support some of them. He also evidently feels hesitant to outright disavow the social conservatives who have long been a key part of his base.”
“1) Trump has successfully associated himself with a message of economic nostalgia, heightening nonwhite Americans’ memories of the pre-Covid economy in contrast to the period of inflation we’re now exiting.
2) Trump and his campaign have also zeroed in specifically on outreach and messaging to nonwhite men as part of their larger focus on appealing to male voters.
3) Trump and his party have taken advantage of a confluence of social factors, including messaging on immigration and cultural issues, to shore up support from conservative voters of color who have traditionally voted for Democrats or not voted at all.”
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“These three theories try to describe how Trump specifically has been able to improve his and the GOP’s standing among a growing segment of the American electorate. They place Trump as the central cause for the majority of this racial political shift. But would these dynamics still be happening if he weren’t involved?
There are signs that some of this shift may be happening independently of Trump. It could be a product of the growing diversification of America, upward mobility and changing understandings of class, and growing educational divides.
For example, as rates of immigration change and the share of US-born Latino and Asian Americans grows, their partisan loyalties may continue to change. Those born closer to the immigrant experience may have had more of a willingness to back the party seen as more welcoming of immigrants, but as generations get further away from that experience, racial and ethnic identity may become less of a factor in the development of political thinking.
Concepts of racial identity and memory are also changing — younger Black Americans, for example, have less of a tie to the Civil Rights era — potentially contributing to less strong political polarization among Black and Latino people in the US independently of any given candidate — and creating more persuadable voters in future elections.
At the same time, younger generations are increasingly identifying as independents or outside of the two-party paradigm — a change in loyalty that stands to hurt Democrats first, since Democrats tend to do better with younger voters.
Regardless of whether Trump just happens to be the right kind of populist at the right time of racial and ethnic change in America or if he’s a unique accelerator and contributor to the changes America is experiencing, November may offer more evidence that something has fundamentally changed in US politics. As America diversifies, it makes sense for its political parties to diversify too — and that poses a reckoning for Democrats in elections to come.”
“It may be tempting to simply write this off as “Trump being Trump” and move on. But the Republican presidential nominee’s consistent inattention to the details of policymaking does matter—even if it has no bearing on the election—and the child care issue is a perfect example of why.
This sort of issue is a liability for Trump because he can’t just bluster or pander his way through it. Trump excels when he can turn complex policies into simple, partisan us-vs.-them arguments that allow him to avoid any attention on the specifics. On issues like taxes and immigration, this technique works because one party broadly wants the policy to shift in one direction, so Trump can simply promise to do the opposite—never mind the details.
But no one wants higher child care costs. Both sides want to reduce them. The argument, then, must turn on which side can offer the better plan for accomplishing that goal. As Thursday’s answer makes obvious, Trump has no such plan.”