(Screen capture) President Trump Delivers Remarks on New Tariffs. C-Span.org livestream. April 2, 2025
A statement on Trump’s reciprocal tariff announcement from Cato Institute trade experts Scott Linciome and Colin Grabow:
“With today’s announcement, US tariffs will approach levels not seen since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which incited a global trade war and deepened the Great Depression. Applied at breakneck speed without congressional authorization and employing flimsy and conflicting justifications, these so-called “reciprocal tariffs” don’t mirror foreign trade barriers and ignore those imposed by the United States. For all of President Trump’s talk of a new “golden age,” this huge tax increase will inevitably result in higher prices for American families, lower growth and business investment, and diminished exports and manufacturing output as the country’s factories face retaliation abroad and costlier inputs (roughly half of all imports) at home. The tariffs’ only clear beneficiaries, meanwhile, will be corporate cronies, K Street influence peddlers, and American adversaries who profit from the United States’ tarnished international reputation.
Opening foreign markets is a laudable goal but could have been achieved more broadly – and with far less damage – through traditional free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Trump abandoned in 2017. Imposed at a time when both US industrial capacity and family wealth—which has nearly quadrupled since 1989—are all-time highs, Trump’s risible rhetoric about the economic power of tariffs is, like his trade strategy, detached from reality. The only thing these tariffs will “liberate” is money from Americans’ wallets.”
The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization—or think tank—that creates a presence for and promotes libertarian ideas in policy debates. According to its website, the Institute’s mission is to “keep the principles, ideas, and moral case for liberty alive for future generations, while moving public policy in the direction of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.”
Cato Institute news release
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