Trump’s Trade War Is Terrible Politics
By personalizing his signature policy, the president is creating some major risks for himself.
Maybe rethink this one.
Photographer: Alex Edelman/Bloomberg
I can't think of a recent historical parallel to President Donald Trump's continuing trade wars. Just this week, we saw new tariffs imposed on Chinese products, threats of retaliation, and the promise of yet another round of punitive measures to follow. Whether this is brave or foolhardy is perhaps up for debate. But it’s certainly unusual.
While presidents are almost always the most public face of the policies they support, most will try to find allies that allow them to depersonalize things to some extent. Normal presidents love having bipartisan support; if that's unavailable, they'll at least fall back on their parties. Trump is out there alone on topic after topic, from his border wall to Yemen. On trade, he’s especially isolated. Yes, he's brought a handful of Republicans with him, and on China in particular he may have a few added allies. But overall, Trump’s trade wars are going to result in some unusually personal successes or failures.