by Gavin Wax
Elections have consequences, and those consequences are dire for free market dogmatists in the Republican Party.
The tariff debate is over. President Donald Trump won, and it is not even close. Americans overwhelmingly support efforts to punish countries like China for their unfair trade practices. Even President Joe Biden, who ran blatantly misrepresenting the Trump economic record, has kept the Trump tariffs on steel and aluminum in place.
The propaganda blitz against Trump’s tariffs dominated traditional media outlets in the lead up to the election. According to the elitist spin, tariffs are a crippling sales tax, opposed vehemently by voters, devastating for the economy, harmful to the poor, and stock market poison.
Nominally conservative think tanks and libertarian ideologue Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) even shamefully joined the Democrats in their demonization of Trump’s economic populism. Their criticism misses the forest for the trees. Tariffs are more than just an economic policy; they are the mechanism that can reconstitute the American system and bring an end to globalist hegemony.
Tariffs made America great once before. As noted by former Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan, the era of protectionism built America into an economic powerhouse and established the middle class. Gross domestic product quadrupled in the protectionist era, from 1869 to 1900. There were regular budget surpluses, the debt was virtually non-existent, and deflation ensured that working families could increasingly thrive.
Tariffs are built into the DNA of the American Republic. The Tariff Act of 1789 was America’s seminal legislative achievement, and even the staunchest free traders among the Founding Fathers, like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, realized the necessity of the tariff. Liberty and independence are high-minded and noble ideals, but they cannot sustain themselves without national policy supporting domestic industry from outside intervention.
Tariffs are a national security priority as foreigners should never be able to hold the American people hostage, because pure economic efficiency has been made into a deity by free market zealots. Economics should not be a religion, and if the market must be disrupted to a limited extent for the betterment of society, so be it.
And let’s be honest, that market is clearly not “free” or “fair.” China, when subsidizing state-owned enterprises at a massive loss, is creating clear distortions that even the most dogmatic economists acknowledge must be addressed. Just look at their environmental standards: China allows their industries to pollute recklessly because they know it gives them an unfair advantage. Even libertarian demigod Milton Friedman acknowledged that pollution is the clearest example of a market failure that should be addressed. We should get smart, not just big, on tariffs to deal with these market failures.
Trade policies that hold China accountable for their high-pollution products would level the playing field for American manufacturers and should be a high priority for Republicans. It’s already being championed by Trump’s U.S. Trade Representative, so now all that is left is for the Republicans in Congress to get on board with the Trump tariff agenda.
President Trump has put tariffs back on the map, and these policies are at the heart of his MAGA revolution. The Harris campaign’s characterization of tariffs as a “national sales tax” fell flat on the campaign trail and was smartly rejected by the voters.
As corporations find that policies of outsourcing hurt their bottom line, they will inevitably come to the table and be willing to do business, as John Deere famously did because of Trump’s tough trade policies. Although China is nipping at America’s heels, the American markets still drive the world for the time being. Now is the time to use American market power to level the playing field while that leverage still exists. The tariff is the tool to achieve those noble ends.
The goal of MAGA conservatives, fueled by Trump’s sweeping electoral mandate, should be permanent tariffs with a government limited enough to be funded by the revenue of tariffs. Trump is flirting with this idea, doubling down on his proposals and stating that perhaps the income tax should be scrapped and replaced with tariffs.
This is a development that should have even staunch free-market libertarians salivating. Tariffs are the only realistic and proven trade policy to shake up the current economic order.
Those unwilling to make the shift and embrace Trump’s Tariff Party, a GOP that can actually conserve American prosperity and economic dominance on the world stage, ought to be ushered into the dustbin of history where they belong.
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Gavin M. Wax is the Executive Director of the National Constitutional Law Union. He also serves as the 76th President of the New York Young Republican Club and as an Ambassador for Turning Point USA & Live Action.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
