Complete Story
10/30/2024
The Tariff History a Presidential Candidate is Overlooking
Analysts are worried about what they call "late 19th century" policies
The Harris/Walz Democratic presidential ticket has popularized the slogan "We Won't Go Back." The "back" they are referencing is the chaotic four years of Donald Trump's first presidential administration, as well as a pre-Roe v. Wade era of unsafe abortions.
But the catchy Democratic rallying cry could just as easily apply to Trump’s economic policies, particularly his tax and international trade policies, which would take the United States back not just to Trump’s presidency but to the late 19th century—back to an era when regressive tariffs and the absence of progressive income taxes fueled the massive inequalities of the first Gilded Age.
Trump recently vowed that if he is re-elected, he will fundamentally transform the U.S. tax and trade systems. As part of his “new American industrialism,”Trump proposes to erode the United States’ existing progressive income and wealth-transfer taxes, essentially replacing them with regressive tariffs, or import duties, on consumer goods. As part of his economic nationalism, Trump has called for a 20 percent across-the-board tariff on all imports, a 60 percent duty on Chinese goods and a punitive tax on U.S. companies that ship jobs overseas.
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