To: Brumar89 who wrote (1141218 ) 6/12/2019 11:29:51 AM From: Brumar89 1 RecommendationRecommended By
Respond to Why Is Congress Letting This Man Set America’s Trade Policy?by ANDREW EGGER Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via email Print described the prospect as “holding a gun to our own heads.”they hadn’t ) and that the tariffs were thus no longer necessary. Thus was the potential disaster of the U.S. opening another front in its current trade war with China averted. repeated, bizarre threats to slap new tariffs on China if President Xi Jinping declines to meet with him at an international summit later this month. [ There's a real possibility that Xi won't show up just to save face. ] Contra the assurances of the free traders in his administration , the president has never made a secret of his belief that tariffs are a positive economic good. He seems to see them as a source of free money that strong nations can effortlessly extract from weaker ones . Couple that with what is commonly and politely referred to as Trump’s “improvisational” governing style—his propensity, in other words, to make grave policy choices based on the first notion that pops into his head —and you have a recipe for the foreign policy doctrine we increasingly see: Trump endeavoring to solve any foreign policy irritant through a vigorous application of tariffs. ad hoc tariff attack with an equal and opposite reaction of their own—would only solve part of the problem. The bigger issue is the economic anxiety the president invites each time he flails his tariff weapons around, the market instability that results when he does so incessantly, and the damage it does to our diplomatic relations each time the president shows that America cannot be counted on to honor its agreements. actually moving to restrict the White House’s power to set U.S. trade policy by decree . This is, after all, a power vested by the Constitution in the Congress. Re-asserting this prerogative would require no great act of creativity: Sen. Mike Lee has already introduced a bill that would require Congress to sign off on any new trade barrier the White House wanted to put in place. thebulwark.com
