The typically conservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal ripped Donald Trump's "bull-headed" devotion to tariffs, writing in a new piece that this "fury" towards the recent Supreme Court ruling "will end up hitting the economy and Republicans in Congress."
On Friday, the Supreme Court released its highly anticipated ruling on a case involving Trump's tariff authority, finding 6-3 that he did not have the power to levy them under the law he had been using to do so for the last year. Trump responded promptly with a press briefing, where he trashed the majority opinion and accused the justices who ruled against him of being controlled by foreign interests.
He also pledged to forge ahead with his tariff agenda, using a different method: section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. This provision is significantly more limited than the authority Trump had claimed before the ruling, allowing him to impose tariffs only up to 15 percent and for a maximum of 150 days, unless Congress votes to extend them.
In its piece from Tuesday, the WSJ editorial board dismissed Section 122 as a "relic" from a much different time, created to address problems that were vastly different from those Trump is claiming to use it for. The politically savvy move, it argued, would have been to move on from tariffs altogether and focus on an affordability message for voters. Instead, Trump is forging ahead with a plan that will hurt his party in the midterms.
"The larger reality is that Mr. Trump is so bull-headed about tariffs that he’s going to re-impose them any way he can," the board wrote, citing the other options that the president might use and dismissing them as "limited in scope and duration."
The board continued: "That isn’t to say they won’t do harm. They’ll create more uncertainty for business, at least for a while. And with the midterm elections coming soon, this timing is fraught for Republicans. Amid an 'affordability' panic, Mr. Trump says he is going to impose more border taxes on enough imports to make up for his lost emergency tariffs. Democrats must be thrilled at their dumb luck."
The Court's ruling could have been a win for Trump and the GOP, the board argued, as it would have been simple to spin it as a "$150 billion tax cut." The Trump administration, however, is dedicated to fighting the tariff refund process, making sure that businesses do not get back any of the money they paid in import taxes.
"Mr. Trump is so ideologically fixated on tariffs that he is willing to bet his Presidency on them," the board concluded. "This looks increasingly like a losing wager for Republicans."