I don't know why the Democrats decided to argue about tariffs. I think it's a losing argument for them.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...usinesses-from-chinas-unfair-trade-practices/
The difference between the Biden Tariffs that modified the Tariff first done by Trump is they are very targeted and limited to certain products vs the current Trump Tariff promise for a worldwide foreign 10 percent tariff and a 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods
Biden's far more limited tariffs are to reshore specific industries, especially those related to national security, such as chips, some technology, and clean energy. They are also associated with sectors believed to be unfair trade and labor policies in some countries (and there are provisions to apply for exemptions).
These costs would be largely passed on to the user they will not be paid by foreign countries as he falsely keeps saying. The idea is to make certain US manufactured goods cheaper than foreign (especially China) imports. So buy US goods and support US manufacturers.
The problem is the balance between US owned supply of stuff vs cheaper prices due to much less costly labor in most other countries. So if we buy US goods at least our labor component of price will be much higher than cheap foreign labor. On the other hand, if you buy foreign the consumer will pay a higher price since includes the Tariff, but will be paid to the US like a sales tax.
Related to the additional wider "Trump II Tariffs this is highlights from The Peterson Institute for International Economics - an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. It questions whether it would be legal unless Republicans control both houses of Congress.
Trump II Tariffs: Who said he could do that?
Many people appear to assume that, if reelected, former president Donald Trump on day one of his second term would carry out his campaign promise to impose 10 to 20 percent tariffs on all imports. This, combined with his threatened 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports, would cost the typical American household more than $2,600 a year.
Trump doesn’t have the authority to do this. Saying he would be a dictator for a day if reelected doesn’t make him one. Why not? Because the US Constitution says very plainly that Congress, not the president, has the authority to impose tariffs. It is there in black and white. Article 1, Section 8: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, …To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.” Congress has not delegated the authority to set the level of tariffs and, what’s more, it is unlikely that it could, under our Constitution, do so. It can delegate selectively, not abdicate its role completely.
Trump and the public became accustomed to him doing what he wanted to do with tariffs during his time in office. [long history of Trump Tariffs deleted.]. All of Trump’s tariffs, however, as well as those imposed later by President Biden, were put into place under what was claimed to be a delegation of tariff authority to the president from the Congress. Presidents do not have the power to set those tariffs independently.
[Long discussion of details deleted of how justified prior Tariffs under both Trump and Biden but argues none of these applies to Trump II Tariffs.].
Could a re-elected Trump act first and sort out the legalities later? Wouldn’t a hand-picked Supreme Court rule that somehow additional across-the-board tariffs on all imports from all countries was justified? After all, the Supreme Court in recent years has ruled that voting rights can be curbed, that political contributions can be unlimited in amount, that 50 years of reproductive rights will not be maintained, that deference to administrative agencies is no more, and that the president himself is immune to accountability for his official acts. In other words, a very pliant Supreme Court delivered everything Trump and those who back him would want.
The answer is “no.” Even the justices who favored deference to the executive branch required that there was ambiguity as to whether an agency had authority delegated by Congress before they would defer to the agency’s interpretation of the law.
Here there is no ambiguity. The Constitution is clear. For the constitutional originalists and for the justices who give deference to executive branch agencies alike, there is no scope for determining that Trump can impose blanket tariffs ( the equivalent of taxes on the American people). The wholesale transfer of authority from the Congress to the president would be going too far. Even King George III needed the British Parliament to pass the Stamp Act in 1765. The Supreme Court can act quickly when it has to. Even in a time of war, the Court acted in less than two months to rule that President Harry S. Truman lacked authority to seize the nation’s steel mills during a strike.
Would the courts uphold Trump’s planned 60 percent China tariffs? That is a separate question. The president has, under the Constitution, the power to conduct foreign affairs and the delegated power to act against unfair acts by other countries. Two US presidents have labeled China an unfair trader, and the courts could defer to that finding. Would they defer to a finding that all countries acted unfairly against the United States? That is a harder case to make, depending more on general paranoia than facts. Nixon, who was not paranoid when it came to foreign affairs, was clear there was a national emergency in 1971. Had the retaliatory authority existed then, he could have found that with a dollar pegged at an artificially high level, all trade was unfair. That is not the condition today.
Should America’s trading partners who do not feel vulnerable for other reasons be preparing gifts to buy off a second Trump administration to avoid a blanket 10 to 20 percent tariff? That is questionable. Such a tariff would not stand unless the pro-Trump Republicans gain control of both houses of Congress, in which case, all bets are off.
