Latest justification for Trump’s tariffs is just as looney as the rest
The Trump administration’s latest justification for tariffs is even less believable than its previous ones.
President Donald Trump has previously said, among other things, that the tariffs would stem the tide of fentanyl entering the United States and help boost American manufacturing — two things that experts rightly warned would not occur as a result of the president’s destructive and delusional economic agenda.
Aside from soaring prices for Americans, what the tariffs did seem to do was net the president lavish gifts from those seeking tariff relief.
After the Supreme Court ruled that Trump doesn’t have the tariff authority he claimed, the president is trying to impose tariffs through other means. The latest example is his administration’s claim that tariffs are needed to thwart the scourge of “forced labor” around the world.
On Tuesday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who at times has seemed completely out of the loop on Trump’s tariff policy, announced proposed tariffs against dozens of countries while accusing the nations of failing to crack down on forced labor. Greer said the plan is meant to protect American workers from being “forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field.”
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
