Trump Tariffs: Effective Threats or Economic Self-Owns?

President-elect Donald Trump has proposed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, and 10% on imports from China. What do media outlets think?

Tariffs Are Bad: As of Wednesday afternoon, written opinions supporting Trump's tariffs were scarce; outlets across the spectrum published pieces criticizing the proposal. An analysis in BBC (Center bias) noted "most of the economic burden" from Trump's first-term tariffs "was ultimately borne by US consumers," and that neither steelmaking jobs nor the U.S. trade deficit substantially improved. The Wall Street Journal editorial board (Lean Right bias) wrote, "The hopeful interpretation now is that Mr. Trump is merely using tariffs again as a negotiating strategy... The problem is that this strategy isn’t cost-free and there can be collateral damage" to American industries. A writer for The American Prospect (Left bias) predicted that "tariff waivers" for individual companies would be "one of the biggest locations of corruption and cronyism in Trump’s second term," citing examples from Trump's 2018 tariffs on China.

Tariffs Are Good: Some television shows on the right featured defenders of Trump's tariff plan. On Newsmax (Right bias), Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC) pointed out that, following Trump's announcement, the leaders of Canada and Mexico both promised to work with him on the issues he outlined "without [him] even being in office" yet. Businessman Steve Forbes told Fox Business (Lean Right bias) that Trump's threats may succeed because other countries "know Donald Trump might be the kind of guy who'd pull the trigger. He did last time; it was the first time in decades that a president imposed tariffs like that."