Election 2024

Liz Wolfe | 10.29.2024 9:30 AM

10 percent or 20 percent or nonexistent? Donald Trump's campaign pitch appears to be one of selectively limited government; possibly appointing Elon Musk "secretary of cost-cutting" (more on that here) yet also favoring some unknown level of tariffing, which some of his lackeys claim won't actually happen but will just be used to convince other countries to lessen their trade restrictions on us.

At different times, Trump has promoted a 10 percent across-the-board tariff, then a 20 percent tariff, with 60 percent levied on Chinese goods. Now, in the last two weeks, he's floated the idea of scrapping the income tax altogether in favor of tariffs, or possibly a value-added tax. "Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented," he said recently at a town hall in Michigan.

But this economic illiteracy has somehow found proponents, mostly in the form of Trump surrogates claiming that the threat of tariffs will be enough of a flex, and that actual tariffs won't really have to be implemented.

First, that's a mighty risk for voters to take. Second, that's not how it's really played out in the past.

"The idea that the White House can use import restrictions to affect foreign governments' policies is not entirely without precedent," writes Scott Lincicome for The Atlantic. He........

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