Tariff Talk: How Trump's duties drama could end
'I don't change my mind, but I'm very flexible,' POTUS said
>> OPINION & ANALYSIS
Every season finale needs a good plot twist.
It’s more than safe to assume Donald Trump, the former reality television host/executive producer-turned-two-term-president, knows this.
Trump, since taking office again on Jan. 20, has scripted his global tariffs push as yet another for-television (and social media) drama. More than once, he has manufactured cliffhangers — the world, for instance, is waiting for July 9. That’s the day Trump’s reciprocal tariffs pause — err, reduction to a blanket 10% import duty level — is scheduled to expire.
Is the American economist in chief even thinking about how to climb down from his duty drama? There are signs that point to yes:
> Trump last week suddenly announced the “pause.”
> He started describing himself as “flexible.”
> The president told this correspondent on the South Lawn he might consider tariffs exemptions for the hardest-hit American companies.
But, given all observers have learned about Donald J. Trump, a climbdown will need several components:
> More time: Any good plot twist needs a run-up.
> More Oval Office meetings: Japan today. Italy tomorrow. Israel last week. The left will call it “kissing the ring.” The right will call it the “art of the deal.” It can be both.
> Saving face: Trump mentioned a 10% blanket tariff at many of his campaign rallies in 2024. Sure, he seemed to enjoy getting a rise out of his loyalists by saying he might hike them to 20% or 100% — and, at least once, even threatening during a stop in battleground Wisconsin to impost 200% blanket import fees. But 10% was the rate he mentioned most often. Remember that.
"I don't change my mind, but I'm very flexible," POTUS said Monday in the Oval Office.
Those nine words are telling.
As always, the negotiator in chief needs a final tariffs regime that allows that quote to be true.
And this is what all evidence suggests would achieve that: A blanket 10% duty for just about every country, maybe a tariff slightly higher for some countries the White House calls the world’s “worst offenders,” and a rate approaching 100% for China.
With the July 9 deadline approaching, the U.S. and global economies still slumping, and Republicans’ poll numbers dropping ahead of next year’s midterm elections, picture a steamy Rose Garden.
There’s Trump at the lectern, reviewing the delegations and leaders who came to meet with his team and him personally. Their appeals. Their terms, which he demanded be more pro-American.
Trump would get his much-desired declaration of victory. Global markets and other countries would get certainty. And many congressional Democrats, who over the years have complained about other countries’ trade practices, would get a season finale with which they couldn’t complain all that much.
Even at the lowered rate of 10%, compared to the much higher reciprocal rates, would be a drastic overhaul of global trade and America’s place in it.
One could image Trump to wrap up a July 9 Rose Garden celebration with a line similar to one he uttered Wednesday morning in an interview that aired on FOX Noticias:
“We're making tremendous amounts of money taking in billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs from other countries that for many, many decades just ripped off the United States. And it's time that we not allow that to happen.”
What his critics would call caving, Trump could argue was a fulfilled campaign promise. And without much Democratic outrage, he just might get away with it all.
Again.