Even in the face of growing personal legal peril, Donald Trump summoned his top economic advisers to his private golf club in New Jersey for a two-hour dinner last Wednesday night to map out a trade-focused economic plan for his presidential bid.
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Trump and top aides — including former senior White House officials Larry Kudlow and Brooke Rollins, as well as outside advisers Stephen Moore and former House speaker Newt Gingrich — spent the dinner discussing how Trump could attack President Biden in the 2024 election on the economy, amid a recent spate of positive economic news that has buoyed Biden’s fortunes, according to three people familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private event.
Trump touts authoritarian vision for second term: ‘I am your justice’
Among the ideas they discussed was Trump’s plan to enact a “universal baseline tariff” on virtually all imports to the United States, the people said. This idea, which Trump has taken to describing as creating a “ring around the U.S. economy,” could represent a massive escalation of global economic chaos, surpassing the international trade discord that marked much of his first administration.
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Trump’s advisers have for months discussed various potential levels to set the tariff rate, and they say the plan remains a work in progress with major questions left unresolved, the people said. On Fox Business on Thursday, the former president publicly called for setting this tariff at 10 percent “automatically” for all countries — a move that experts warn could lead to higher prices for consumers throughout the economy, and likely lead to a global trade war.
“I think we should have a ring around the collar” of the U.S. economy, Trump told Kudlow on Fox Business on Thursday. “When companies come in and they dump their products in the United States, they should pay, automatically, let’s say a 10 percent tax … I do like the 10 percent for everybody.”
The proposed expansion of the tariff policy — which aides say is expected to be a central 2024 campaign plank — reflects how Trump is aiming to expand the power he wielded in the White House, eyeing sweeping authoritarian measures for his second term that range from deploying the military to fight street crime to purging the federal workforce. Trump is opting not to explain this vision to voters at the first GOP presidential primary debate, being held Wednesday; Trump will not attend.
Economists of both parties say Trump’s tariff proposal is extremely dangerous. Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a D.C.-based think tank, called the idea “lunacy” and “horrifying” and said it would lead the world’s other major economies to conclude that the United States cannot be trusted as a trading partner. Although aimed at bolstering domestic production, a 10 percent tariff would hurt the thousands of U.S. firms that depend on imports, while also crippling the thousands of U.S. firms that depend on foreign export markets, Posen said.
Currently, the United States imposes an average tariff on imports of just above 3 percent, according to Posen. That number is higher for some countries, with Chinese goods facing an average import duty of 19 percent.
“You’d be depriving American families of an enormous amount of choice, making their lives much more expensive, and putting millions of people out of work,” Posen said.
Trump could use unilateral authority to exempt whatever countries he chooses from the automatic import tariffs. That would create enormous opportunities for influence-peddling, Posen said, following four years of a Trump presidency in which Saudi Arabia and other nations sought to steer Trump by frequenting his private businesses.
“It’s a recipe for corruption,” Posen said. “They’ll decide that whoever cozies up to Trump, or whoever his commerce secretary is, will get the exception.”
As inflation falls, GOP may have to rethink attacks on Biden economy
Even former Trump economic officials were sharply critical of the idea.
“A tariff of that scope and size would impose a massive tax on the folks who it intends to help,” said Paul Winfree, an economist who served as Trump’s deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council and is now president of the Economic Policy Innovation Center, a center-right think tank. “It would get passed along through higher prices at a time when the Federal Reserve has had difficulty limiting inflation.”
Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.
Trump and top aides — including former senior White House officials Larry Kudlow and Brooke Rollins, as well as outside advisers Stephen Moore and former House speaker Newt Gingrich — spent the dinner discussing how Trump could attack President Biden in the 2024 election on the economy, amid a recent spate of positive economic news that has buoyed Biden’s fortunes, according to three people familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private event.
Trump touts authoritarian vision for second term: ‘I am your justice’
Among the ideas they discussed was Trump’s plan to enact a “universal baseline tariff” on virtually all imports to the United States, the people said. This idea, which Trump has taken to describing as creating a “ring around the U.S. economy,” could represent a massive escalation of global economic chaos, surpassing the international trade discord that marked much of his first administration.
ADVERTISING
Trump’s advisers have for months discussed various potential levels to set the tariff rate, and they say the plan remains a work in progress with major questions left unresolved, the people said. On Fox Business on Thursday, the former president publicly called for setting this tariff at 10 percent “automatically” for all countries — a move that experts warn could lead to higher prices for consumers throughout the economy, and likely lead to a global trade war.
“I think we should have a ring around the collar” of the U.S. economy, Trump told Kudlow on Fox Business on Thursday. “When companies come in and they dump their products in the United States, they should pay, automatically, let’s say a 10 percent tax … I do like the 10 percent for everybody.”
The proposed expansion of the tariff policy — which aides say is expected to be a central 2024 campaign plank — reflects how Trump is aiming to expand the power he wielded in the White House, eyeing sweeping authoritarian measures for his second term that range from deploying the military to fight street crime to purging the federal workforce. Trump is opting not to explain this vision to voters at the first GOP presidential primary debate, being held Wednesday; Trump will not attend.
Economists of both parties say Trump’s tariff proposal is extremely dangerous. Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a D.C.-based think tank, called the idea “lunacy” and “horrifying” and said it would lead the world’s other major economies to conclude that the United States cannot be trusted as a trading partner. Although aimed at bolstering domestic production, a 10 percent tariff would hurt the thousands of U.S. firms that depend on imports, while also crippling the thousands of U.S. firms that depend on foreign export markets, Posen said.
Currently, the United States imposes an average tariff on imports of just above 3 percent, according to Posen. That number is higher for some countries, with Chinese goods facing an average import duty of 19 percent.
“You’d be depriving American families of an enormous amount of choice, making their lives much more expensive, and putting millions of people out of work,” Posen said.
Trump could use unilateral authority to exempt whatever countries he chooses from the automatic import tariffs. That would create enormous opportunities for influence-peddling, Posen said, following four years of a Trump presidency in which Saudi Arabia and other nations sought to steer Trump by frequenting his private businesses.
“It’s a recipe for corruption,” Posen said. “They’ll decide that whoever cozies up to Trump, or whoever his commerce secretary is, will get the exception.”
As inflation falls, GOP may have to rethink attacks on Biden economy
Even former Trump economic officials were sharply critical of the idea.
“A tariff of that scope and size would impose a massive tax on the folks who it intends to help,” said Paul Winfree, an economist who served as Trump’s deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council and is now president of the Economic Policy Innovation Center, a center-right think tank. “It would get passed along through higher prices at a time when the Federal Reserve has had difficulty limiting inflation.”
