Power routinely changes in Washington. This historical truth doesn’t seem to be landing with Republicans in Congress, or their media allies.
Think the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Puzzlingly writing in glowing fashion about the Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act after having puzzlingly done so previously, the editorialists acknowledged last week a rather obvious problem with the legislation, specifically the “wisdom of ceding more tariff authority to the White House.” Well, yes.
Does anyone remember the stock market reaction to tariffs previously imposed unilaterally by the Trump White House despite their constitutionally dubious qualities? Yet here we have Congress giving the same president constitutional cover to do what is really damaging not just to the U.S. economy and global economy, but to economics itself.
Only for the Journal’s editorialists to gently pat presumably a few less than sanguine readers on the head with an allegedly encouraging caveat about legislation that empowers presidents to impose tariffs of the 100% kind on other nations. You see, the president isn’t that powerful…
As the Journal notes, “the bill includes some important restrictions on how the President can use it. The language limits the number of countries that can be tariffed.” How it applies to Graham hagiography masked as legislation is that Trump could “only” tariff countries with sizable Russian trading relationships, including as the Journal points out with evident excitement, India and China. Ok, but stop right there.
For one, imagine the Democrats passing legislation honoring one of their heroes (think Sanders, Warren, perhaps AOC?) through enhanced taxing power installed in the executive branch, but don’t worry the New York Times editorial board might say, the president can “only” tax the richest Americans…
Readers can hopefully imagine the reaction on the right. With good reason. It’s not just that the rich near uniquely provide the investment capital without which there are no new companies and jobs, it’s that the richest of the rich overwhelmingly provide the most capital necessary to drive progress. Please keep this in mind with the Graham legislation top of mind.
The Journal’s editorial board gives the impression that since tariff power installed in the executive is limited to the very few who have the temerity to engage in global trade, that it’s seemingly innocuous. Not so fast.
Not all trading relationships are equal. Put another way, the Chinese people are conducting what is a passionate love affair with American goods of all kinds. Which helped explain the previous market corrections in response to President Trump’s thoroughly mindless tariffs. Rest assured, the market reaction wasn’t trader nailbiting over tariffs levied on Peru, South Sudan, and the Marshall Islands. Get it?
In short, the assurances about the Graham legislation offered by the most important source of freedom and free market opinion in the world are hardly mitigated by the limited number of countries that Trump would have power to foist tariffs on. That’s because Trump’s not interested in Micronesia, but he is interested in China and India, the two largest importers of “Russian oil,” by far. Still confused?
If so, conduct a few Google searches of the largest foreign markets for the most valuable U.S. companies, followed by a refresher on the basic of trade. And if time is short, the basics will be laid out here in fifteen short words: if producers in other countries can’t sell to us, they also can’t buy from us.
The Graham legislation doesn’t just vandalize economics, it’s incredibly irresponsible. The Wall Street Journal editorial board will ideally come to agreement with the previously expressed sentiment, particularly when it’s remembered that Donald Trump thankfully won’t be president forever.