EDITORIAL: Way more losers than winners in Trump’s tariff decision

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)

March 08--Trade policy, like health care policy, is more complicated than President Donald Trump imagined. His pledge last week to raise tariffs on steel and aluminum and his casual disregard for the harmful effects of a trade war have done the following:

--Alarmed Republicans in Congress, who think he's undoing the benefits of the tax cuts they passed;

--Cost him the services of his chief economic adviser;

--Concerned his secretaries of state and defense, who think a trade war will make the world less safe;

--Angered some of America's closest allies;

--Cast a pall on hopes that the threat of a nuclear North Korea can be forestalled.

Not bad for an impulsive decision made last Thursday without consulting Gary D. Cohn, the director of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers. Cohn, the former No. 2 executive at Goldman Sachs, is among the few in the administration who understand global economics. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by more than 300 points after Cohn's plan to resign became public Tuesday, and stocks stayed deeply in the negative for most of Wednesday.

But Trump has long believed that global trade agreements work against U.S. interests and pledged during his campaign to restore balance. He believes that America-first protectionism will benefit him politically in the industrial Midwest. On that, he's probably correct.

A 25 percent tariff on imported steel will be popular among the 500 steelworkers recalled Wednesday by U.S. Steel's Granite City works. Rust Belt Democratic Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown of Ohio praised Trump's plan.

But GOP leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., weren't so sanguine. Among the business interests who make up the GOP donor class, far more are steel users than steel manufacturers, and they're not happy. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, warned that tariffs would "undermine" the tax-cut bill passed in December.

In large part that's because, as the conservative Heritage Foundation has reported, the U.S. steel and aluminum industries employ 200,000 workers, while companies that make things from steel employ 6.5 million people.

And should the tariffs trigger a larger trade war, not only will Midwest corn and soybean growers suffer, but so will import-dependent companies in the Midwest that are part of international manufacturing chains for things like auto parts.

Allies, including South Korea, are apoplectic about Trump's plans, warning that they could imperil nascent security negotiations with North Korea. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have warned trade officials that Trump's tariffs could endanger U.S. national security.

Trump still hasn't made his plans official but has pledged to do so "in a loving way," whatever that means. The country would be better off if, as often happens, he changed his mind.

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