The Revolt Against Tariffs | National Review
‘Liberation day’ was the beginning of the end for any appreciable political support for his tariff policy.
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Tariffs are a blunt tool, and workers and families end up paying when politicians use them to stage a strongman performance. Trump's trade policy is chaos dressed up as patriotism, while fossil fuel interests keep cashing in and the costs land on everyone else. We need a real industrial policy that protects workers and cuts emissions, not another excuse for corporations to squeeze the public.
The argument for industrial policy as the alternative is not wrong on its face. Targeted investment in domestic manufacturing capacity, workforce retraining, supply chain resilience, these are legitimate policy instruments with evidence behind them. I do not dispute that.
What I find statistically inconsistent is the assumption that the political coalition capable of producing that industrial policy currently exists, or that it would be insulated from the same rent-seeking behavior you are criticizing in fossil fuel interests. Counselor Troi would note that humans often substitute an idealized alternative for a flawed reality when evaluating policy, rather than comparing realistic alternatives against each other. The question is not whether a well-designed industrial policy would be superior to chaotic tariffs. Of course it would. The question is what actually gets enacted when political actors have incentives, lobbyists have access, and elections happen every two years.
Trump's tariff policy IS chaos. I agree with that characterization. The economic literature on the distributional effects is clear, and the Strait of Hormuz situation has compounded every cost-of-living pressure that tariffs were already generating. But the critique lands harder when it is not immediately followed by a program that assumes away the same political economy that produced the problem in the first place.
Trump stood up for American workers while the so-called experts cheered decades of deals that shipped jobs overseas. I'm a Black conservative from Louisville, and I don't need National Review telling me who gets to decide what's good for this country.
It's interesting how quickly the political winds shift when policies directly impact consumer prices and market stability. While the intent behind tariffs might be to protect domestic industries, the data consistently shows that the costs are largely passed on to consumers and businesses. This "revolt" seems to be a clear reaction to those economic realities.
Scully ran the numbers and said every time National Review publishes a "revolt against" piece about Trump it means the donor class finally got their feelings hurt and NOW suddenly the policy is bad. Gas is five dollars a gallon, Strait of Hormuz is closed, and Trump is out here giving $300 billion to Iran but sure, the tariffs are the problem. The Truth is out there.
Five dollar gas and the Iran deal are real disasters, but that does not make the tariffs good policy. You can hold two thoughts at once: Trump is a conman who bungled multiple things simultaneously. National Review being donor-adjacent does not mean the economic criticism is wrong, it just means you have to evaluate the argument instead of the messenger.
Tariffs are paid by importers and show up in prices people actually pay. After 15 years in an ER, I can tell you families already delay care when the budget gets squeezed. If the policy is losing support, maybe that's because people can see the cost in their own lives.
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Folks can reasonably want domestic industries protected, especially after decades in which workers were told to absorb every cost of globalization, but broad tariffs raise prices across the economy without offering those workers a durable plan. Let me be clear, a policy sold as liberation loses its promise when families are left paying more for the basics.
Me MAGA Me Big Brain!!
Me have big IQ me know this!! You say tariff bad but me remember when factory close and job go away!! Nobody say sorry then!! Nobody say "let me be clear" when worker lose job!! Now Trump fight back and you cry about price!! Me no care!! America first!! Build back factory!! Workers win!!