Can Trump Win Trade Wars Before They Start?
A Commentary By Daniel McCarthy
Donald Trump knows exactly what he's doing with tariffs.
Everyone else is baffled: Why did the president announce heavy taxes on
imports from Canada as well as Mexico and China?
America has an obvious interest in economic decoupling from China, a
great-power rival.
And by first imposing and then suspending tariffs on Mexican imports,
Trump was able to bring Mexico's government to the negotiating table on his
terms.
That's won immediate results in the fight against illegal immigration and
traffic in fentanyl and other drugs into our country:
President Claudia Sheinbaum is now sending 10,000 troops to secure
Mexico's side of the border.
She has one month to get the job done and strike a bigger, long-term deal
with the United States -- or tariffs snap back in March.
Then there are those Yukon cartels and the Canadian Communist Party, and
... wait, what?
What trouble could America possibly have with Canada that justifies a 25%
tariff on the goods they sell us?
Like Mexico, Canada has been given a 30-day reprieve to work things out.
There's more to talk about than just the northern border.
Trump needles Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about turning Canada into our
51st state.
It's hard to imagine tariffs high enough to accomplish what a couple of
invasions couldn't achieve over the last 200-odd years, though:
America tried to take Canada by force in the Revolutionary War and the War
of 1812, both times hoping Canadians would spontaneously turn against their
government and demand the rights and liberties of American citizens.
A core component of Canada's national identity, however, comes from the
pro-British Tories who fled the American colonies rather than join our
revolution.
Even Canadian conservatives, including the man with the best hope of
beating the Liberal party at the next election, Pierre Poilievre, don't
want to become Americans.
They're patriotically outraged by the tariff threat, and they're in
political danger if Canadians rally to the Liberal government as defender
of their sovereignty and national honor.
But President Trump knows all that.
He's using tariffs to set expectations with our northern neighbor, just as
he has with China and Mexico.
Sometimes the best thing a person or a nation can do for a friend is get
tough.
Canada has long been unserious about meeting its security obligations to
its own people and NATO allies alike.
NATO members are supposed to contribute at least 2% of their GDP to
defense.
Canada spent a meager 1.37% last year, with Trudeau promising his country
would reach the 2% threshold by 2032.
That's not the pledge of a leader who feels any urgency about providing
for his nation's security, let alone helping friends when there's a war
near their borders.
Until now, Canadian prime ministers have been content to let America foot
the security bill -- which is what leads Trump to ask why we should pay for
it if the land isn't ours.
His tough treatment of Trudeau sends a message to Europe, where more NATO
states are beginning to meet their 2% minimum contributions, but just
barely:
Germany, for example, spent 1.3% on defense in 2023 and only brought that
up to a little more than 2% last year, despite NATO facing its greatest
challenge since the end of the Cold War with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In the 21st century, America can't afford to be ripped off by friends any
more than it can afford to be unwary about Chinese power or Mexican
disorder.
Trump is using peaceful -- if painful -- methods to change the behavior of
friend and foe alike.
To be sure, he thinks "tariff" is the most beautiful word in the English
language: Trump is unabashedly a tariff man.
But he's a dealmaker first and foremost, and the tariffs can be avoided if
the other side is willing to reach a deal that better serves America's
interests.
After all, trade with America is in the best interest of everyone else
from China to Mexico to Canada -- we're providing something, yet not
getting enough in return.
Trump means to change that, and tariffs are a powerful tool for doing so.
The president's strategy can even help bring jobs and supply chains back
to America without the tariffs having to go into effect.
Businesses terrified by the prospect of tariffs have an incentive to get
ahead of them by moving production back to America and devoting greater
attention to the home market.
And American companies dependent on foreign imports have every reason to
start breaking free of their dependence right now by finding substitute
components that won't be subject to tariffs.
Trump knows how to win trade wars before the first shot, so to speak, is
fired.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To
read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com.
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