Tariffs are Trump's favorite plaything – and his justifications are absurd
An opinion piece arguing that Trump's new 50% tariff on many Canadian goods and 10-12.5% tariffs on 80+ countries will raise consumer prices, cost the average US household $1,100 a year, and deepen political pain ahead of the midterms.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
Steven Greenhouse argues Trump's newest tariffs, including a 50% hit on Canadian goods and duties on 80+ countries, are economically self-defeating and politically cynical, revived under a 1930 Smoot-Hawley pretext just as his approval ratings sink.
A president is putting extra taxes on things coming into the country from Canada and 80 other places, like a kid who keeps grabbing toys and won't share. When other countries fight back, he gets mad. Now families will pay more for everyday things like hockey sticks, paper, and milk.
Analysis
Reviving a 1930s Ghost to Hit Canada
The centerpiece of Trump's new trade offensive is a 50% tariff on a wide range of Canadian goods, layered on top of an already-thick stack of duties. To justify it, the administration reached back nearly a century to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, a law widely credited with deepening the Great Depression. Citing a rarely used provision allowing retaliation against countries that "discriminate" against US trade, the White House argues that Canada's ban on US liquor imports constitutes illegal discrimination.
The factual kernel: after Trump slapped tariffs on Canada last year, 11 of Canada's 13 provinces and territories pulled American alcohol from shelves in protest, with Trump's talk of making Canada "the 51st state" sharpening the resentment. The author frames this as traditional trade retaliation, not discrimination, especially since US duties already violated the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The piece also flags Trump's separate claim that Canada's 25% retaliatory tariff on US cars, which came only after his own 25% tariff on Canadian cars, somehow counts as discrimination. The author crystallizes the asymmetry in a single line: Trump is essentially telling Canada: I have a right to punch you in the nose whenever I want. But if you punch me back, that's illegal discrimination against the US.
The Affordability Math
The economic argument leans on a Yale Budget Lab estimate that the cumulative tariff regime will cost the average US household roughly $1,100 a year. That figure lands during a midterm year in which affordability has become what the author calls Americans' No 1 economic concern, with gas prices soaring and pushing up inflation. The author predicts the new duties will only deepen that squeeze on household wallets, hitting goods like hockey sticks, paper, plywood, and dairy.
Industrial pain is also visible. The piece cites a loss of 75,000 US factory jobs since Trump returned to office, with executives complaining about what Moody's chief credit officer Atsi Sheth told the New York Times is the new normal: "Volatility and unpredictability is the new normal." That uncertainty, more than the tariff rate itself, may be the bigger drag on investment and hiring plans.
Tariffs as Midterm Cover
The author explicitly casts the new tariffs as political theatre rather than coherent economic policy. With midterms less than four months away, Trump faces an unpopular war with Iran, approval ratings "in the toilet," and persistent voter anger over the Epstein files. The piece argues Trump is hoping tariffs will dominate the news cycle, even though the author believes voters will not forget those other issues.
The justification Trump offers to reporters is unusually candid: "We're going to put a big tariff on Canada because of the smoke," referring to wildfire smoke drifting across the border. That line sits alongside the Smoot-Hawley invocation, the retaliatory-car claim, and the liquor-ban logic. The cumulative effect, in the author's telling, is a policy framework that shifts with the news cycle and treats the world's trading partners as props. The piece closes with Ontario Premier Doug Ford's defiant response on social media, "We won't back down," leaving the standoff unresolved and the broader tariff regime, which the author characterizes as "delusional, destructive tariff tomfoolery," intact.
Key points
- Trump signed orders for a 50% tariff on many Canadian goods and 10-12.5% across-the-board tariffs on more than 80 countries.
- To justify the Canada duties, the administration invoked a rarely used provision of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, citing liquor-import bans and a retaliatory car tariff as 'discrimination.'
- The Yale Budget Lab estimates the tariff regime will cost the average US household about $1,100 a year.
- The US has lost 75,000 factory jobs since Trump returned to office, with Moody's chief credit officer Atsi Sheth calling 'volatility and unpredictability' the new normal.
- The US Supreme Court overturned Trump's earlier tariff package in February, after which the administration pivoted to alternative legal authorities like Smoot-Hawley.
A successful legal challenge, similar to the Supreme Court ruling in February that overturned Trump's earlier tariff package, could force a rollback of the duties and ease the projected $1,100 annual hit to household budgets. A negotiated settlement with Canada and other targeted countries could also defuse the trade war before the midterms, though the article offers no concrete evidence either path is imminent.
If the new tariffs hold, US consumers will absorb the cost in higher prices, gasoline-driven inflation will deepen, and the 75,000 factory jobs already lost under Trump's tenure could swell further as executives continue scaling back investment amid the unpredictability Moody's flagged. Retaliatory tariffs from Canada, the EU, and other partners risk escalating into a broader trade conflict that punishes US exporters.
