President Trump stood his ground Monday on get-tough trade policies that have spooked Wall Street, rattled America’s closest allies and provoked an anti-tariff campaign by the Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest pro-business organization.
The president will not back down from fighting for a “fair playing field” for American workers and industries that he says have suffered for decades from lopsided trade deals, said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
“He is going to keep pushing to make sure that we have good trade deals. We have been in trade deficits with nearly every country across the globe for years,” she said. “The president wants to ensure that that doesn’t continue.”
But the opposition at home and retaliatory tariffs abroad are starting to mount, amid anecdotal reports from companies that they are relocating or curbing operations as a result of Mr. Trump’s trade threats.
The Chamber, often an ally of the Republican White House, was the latest to aggressively confront Mr. Trump’s tariffs, launching an online campaign Monday with an interactive map detailing the economic hurt inflicted on each state if a full-scale trade war breaks out.
The tariff pain ranged from a $1 billion pinch on Wisconsin’s exports of cheese, toilet paper and ginseng to a $3.9 billion bite out of Texas’s exports of pork and whiskey, with no state spared from getting squeezed.
“Tariffs are beginning to take a toll on American businesses, workers, farmers and consumers as overseas markets close to American-made products and prices increase here at home,” said Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue. “Tariffs that beget tariffs that beget more tariffs only lead to a trade war that will cost American jobs and economic growth.”
The tit-for-tat tariffs began with Mr. Trump imposing a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum from allies and rivals in Asia, North America and Europe, citing national security concerns that the U.S. needed to produce more of its own for military purposes.
Still, Mr. Trump’s aggressive rhetoric on trade helped fuel the populist groundswell that carried him to the White House, and there is still a strong strain of support within the GOP and among the Trump political base, many of whom are blue-collar Democrats.
Rep. Jim Renacci, an Ohio Republican running for Senate, said he is fully behind Mr. Trump’s tough trade moves.
“Republican and Democrat presidents allowed China to distort our markets and I applaud the effort this president is doing to build better trade deals to protect American workers. The president promised American workers he would have their back and this is just another promise that he has delivered on,” he said.
Mr. Trump has taken on China for unfair trade practices and theft of American intellectual property, and bucked longtime allies in Canada and Europe for trade barriers and high tariffs on American goods such as cars and dairy products. Determined to get what he calls a fair and “reciprocal” trade deals, Mr. Trump also teed up a 20 percent import tax on all European cars and tariffs on $450 billion worth of Chinese goods.
Already the reaction from outraged foreign capitals is starting to roll in. Beijing is ready with tariffs on $34 billion worth of U.S. goods if the Trump administrations goes forward with its tariff threats. China would target cars, seafood, pork and soybeans.
On Sunday, Canada slapped a 10 percent tariff on $12.5 billion with of U.S. goods, hitting such American staples as whiskey, ketchup, beef, orange juice and soup. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Mr. Trump in a phone call last week that his country had “no choice” but to retaliate against the steel and aluminum tariffs, scoffing at the U.S. argument that Canadian steel imports constituted a “national security risk.”
The European Union also fired back at the steel and aluminum tariffs, imposing tariffs last month on $3.2 billion of U.S. goods including motorcycles, whiskey and peanut butter. Mr. Trump’s threat to increase the import tax on cars from Europe provoked the European Commission to prepare retaliatory tariffs on nearly $300 billion of U.S. products.
European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas told The Associated Press on Monday that the U.S. threat of new auto tariffs “lacks legitimacy, factual basis and violates international trade rules,” just like last month’s U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
In the Oval Office, during a meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Mr. Trump said Monday the administration was close to a “fair deal” for cars with the EU.
“If we do work it out that will be positive, and if we don’t it will be positive also,” Mr. Trump told reporters.
“No,” Mr. Rutte interjected. “It’s not positive. We have to work something out.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.