The Promise of Tariffs

Trump promised them and it looks like we’re going to see how — and whether — the first power granted to Congress works in the 21st century.

Chinatopix via AP
Vehicles and trucks for export at a port at Yantai in eastern China's Shandong province, January 2, 2025. Chinatopix via AP

If the secret of authority is never to disappoint, as critic Walter Benjamin put it, then what a gamble President Trump is running by throwing up punitive tariffs on America’s top trading partners. He had previously suggested a month’s delay on threatened levies of 10 percent on Communist China and 25 percent on both Canada and Mexico. Yet the president’s press secretary says that the tariffs are full steam ahead. “Promises made and promises kept,” she says.

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