Beyer Blasts Trump's 10% Universal Tariff Idea

Former President Donald Trump is considering making hiking tariffs on all imports a plank of his reelection campaign, as he discussed recently on Fox Business. According to a Washington Post story, although Trump said on TV that he liked the idea of a 10% duty on all imports, he has not settled on a number yet. Trump's former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in January 2021 that all countries should have a 10% to 12% tariff on all imports, with higher tariffs for particularly important products (see 2101260048).

A House Ways and Means Committee member and pro-trade Democrat, Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, responded to the Aug. 22 story by issuing a press release that said: "Donald Trump’s plan to impose universal 10 percent tariffs on all imports is idiotic, illegal, and would be a disaster for our economy. It would also immediately violate numerous trade agreements, including the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement which Trump himself signed.

"Trump is proposing intentional inflation; if put into practice, this would dramatically raise costs for the American people on a huge number of essential goods and services. No one would be spared from Trump’s insane new taxes, the chaos and damage to American businesses and jobs would be catastrophic."

Beyer is a co-sponsor of a bill that would restrict the reasons Section 232 tariffs could be imposed, and wouldn't allow the law to be used to hike tariffs or impose quotas unless Congress approved them. The bill also would give Congress the opportunity to end 25% tariffs on imported steel and 10% tariffs on imported aluminum (see 2308110031).

"Trump’s latest harebrained scheme underscores how important it is for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over trade policy, which we should do by passing the Congressional Trade Authority Act," Beyer said.

However, that bill may not be enough to constrain Trump -- he famously threatened to hike tariffs on all Mexican imports, beginning at 5%, and increasing it by 5% each month until it reached 25%, because he believed Mexico was not doing what it should to stop Central American migrants from crossing into the U.S. (see 1905310044). He was planning to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the tariffs.