On February 1, 2025, the White House declared that in response to the national emergency of drug and human trafficking into the United States, tariffs were to be imposed on China, Canada, and Mexico. The fact sheet released by the White House proposes that the tariffs are a reactionary measure to the “extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs”. Stopping U.S. drug deaths is a worthy cause, but using tariffs to accomplish this goal is debatable. 

The arguments for tariffs

Many economists and scholars believe that tariffs effectively promote domestic business and manufacturing without risking inflationary pressures. One of these economists is Robert E. Scott, a law professor at Columbia Law School. In January of 2022, Scott and Hersh (Adam S. Hersh, PhD and Senior Economist) published their findings to the Economic Policy Institute on the economic impacts of tariffs. 

In this article, the economists criticized Trump’s seemingly shortsighted trade policy. They say “…the Trump administration’s trade policy amounted to little more than unfocused rhetoric”. They go on to state that “In particular, the Trump administration’s… general tariffs of up to 25% on more than half of all U.S. imports from China—were treated too often as an end goal rather than a strategic tool to pair with other efforts to restore American competitiveness”.

The tariffs discussed in this excerpt may sound familiar. The up to 25% tariff on imports from China is nothing new. The purpose behind the tariffs is the new part. In his first term, Trump imposed tariffs on China to “insist on fair and reciprocal trade with China and strictly enforce our laws against unfair trade,” according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative in March 2018. 

Because China was distorting fair trade and stealing from America, President Trump finally decided to take what Ambassador Robert Lighthizer called “…effective action to confront China over its state-led efforts to force, strong-arm, and even steal U.S. technology and intellectual property”. Essentially, Trump felt the need to put some teeth behind the discouragement of unfair trade and theft sponsored by the Chinese government. 

The effectiveness of this discouragement can also be questioned. The tariffs were supposedly implemented to discourage the Chinese government from participating in bad trade practices. For this to be accomplished, t

hough, the Chinese government must be the entity that feels the negative impacts of the tariffs. The argument for the tariffs is that they will effectively discourage unfair government action by damaging the economies of China, Canada, and Mexico. The counterargument for this notion that tariffs harm the government only is quite strong, but the purpose of the tariffs is not limited to punishing other countries. 

Tariffs have been used as an effective tool in the past. As the Economic Policy Institute states, “Trade restraints have helped numerous domestic industries rebuild and recover from unfair trade, including the steel and aluminum industries, as we have shown in earlier reports. Tariff removal would threaten these gains and could result in job losses, plant closures, cancellations of planned investments, and further destabilization of the domestic manufacturing base, which would increase domestic dependence on unstable import supply chains”. Trump has imposed tariffs in the past, and they have proven effective and non-detrimental. In 2019, the year following the implementation of Trump’s first tariffs on China and Canada, the Consumer Price Index (the key measure of inflation) increased by only 1.8%. This is significantly lower than the average annual inflation rate, which hovers around 3% over the last 25 years. 

The idea that Trump’s tariffs will cause widespread inflation that will harm lower-class consumers is simply seen as fearmongering by many leading economists. U.S. businesses recognize how helpful tariffs can be for their businesses and for returning the United States back into a manufacturing power. U.S. companies endorsed past Trump tariffs, recognizing their benefit. According to Peterson Institute for International Economics, “The US steel industry and the United Steelworkers Union endorsed the 2018 tariffs, as did Century Aluminum and Magnitude 7 Metals, two of only three firms operating primary aluminum smelters in the United States”.

As mentioned, very similar (if not identical) tariffs have been adopted in the past without any of the repercussions warned about for the future. Trump’s first term saw record low numbers for minority unemployment and inflation, and the economy was thriving until the COVID pandemic set back the U.S. economy temporarily under both the Trump and Biden administrations. 

The arguments against Trump’s tariff proposals

Though there is plenty of literature to support the notion that specified U.S. tariffs will not invoke inflationary pressure, a significant amount of literature suggests the opposite. The arguments against Trump’s new tariffs’ benefits detail how disrupting supply chains creates pressure on U.S. businesses that is too much of a burden to be feasibly transferred in a short amount of time. According to Reuters on March 27, 2025, “The steep and broad-based tariffs are likely to cause supply chain disruptions globally”. 

It has been thoroughly explored and found by economists that tariff removal is harmful to supply chains, harmful to businesses, and can cause inflation. This is another argument not to impose potentially risky tariffs. Because tariffs are hard to reverse or roll back once implemented, it’s vital to ensure the impacts and effectiveness of them. During President Biden’s term in office, he was advised not to roll back any of the tariffs from Trump’s first term in office. According to the Tax Foundation, “The Biden administration kept most of the Trump administration tariffs in place, and in May 2024, announced tariff[s]”. 

Another downside of starting a trade war is retaliation from targeted countries. The Tax Foundation article goes on to say that “China, Canada, and the European Union have announced or imposed retaliatory tariffs”. This could reduce the amount of exporting the U.S. is able to do, which could harm businesses in the U.S. and potentially reduce gross domestic product. 

The stock market will also suffer volatility for a while after implementation of the tariffs. It can be expected to see billionaires’ net worths going down for a while as investor condifence take a toll. The news media will have a large impact directly on the stock market. Mass negative reporting of the tariffs will spark uncertainty and a lack of consumer confidence that could continue to drive the markets down.

The economic impacts of tariffs are heavily researched, and Trump has decided to use them as the means to accomplish a large amount of his agenda. The long-term effectiveness of this new wave of tariffs and reactionary trade policy so far have been negative, but in the long term they can be a tool and an effective means by which to accomplish other American interests.