Phil Gramm and Donald Boudreaux predict a Republican revolt against tariffs.
Donald Trump’s tariffs are hurting Americans. Real economic growth is slowing, consumer prices rising, and real wages stagnating. Now the Republican Party is set to pay for it.
Since the founding, tariffs have proved toxic to the party that implemented them. When Mr. Trump asserted executive authority to impose the highest tariffs in 90 years, Republican congressmen, though skeptical, remained silent. If tariffs hurt Republicans in the November elections as much as they have hurt the economy, the midterms could end up igniting a Reagan revival on trade, shifting the trajectory of the party and the country.
No American president was more passionate about trade liberalization than Ronald Reagan. He understood that free and open markets allow “more productive use of our nation’s resources, more rapid innovation, and a higher standard of living,” as he said in 1985. “The freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides for human progress and peace among nations.”
Most Republicans in Congress favor free trade. They voted by large majorities for the North American Free Trade Agreement, almost unanimously for free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, in large numbers for giving President Obama trade promotion authority, and overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump’s U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
The production disruptions and economic uncertainty that have come with Mr. Trump’s tariffs aren’t winning Americans over. Instead, the prevalence of the view that trade is “an opportunity for economic growth” has soared to 82%, twice the 2008 level, according to a March Gallup poll, which found that 74% of Republicans have a positive view of trade. Republican voters may tell pollsters they support Mr. Trump’s tariff policy, but that support is declining. A February Guardian-Harris Poll found 53% of Republicans say tariffs aren’t the right solution for improving the economy, and 64% said Mr. Trump’s tariffs caused higher prices.
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