Trump’s Tariffs Will Loom Large Over the Midterms, Whatever Happens in Iran
US history shows that duties have a way of boomeranging back on their backers at election time.
As any student of American history could tell you, tariffs can be politically deadly. US President John Quincy Adams was turfed out the same year he signed into law what became known as the “tariff of abominations.” During William McKinley’s stint as a Republican representative from Ohio, his push for the 1890 duties that bore his name wound up costing him his seat. Herbert Hoover’s signature on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 contributed to his Republicans losing control of Congress in midterm elections a few months later.
Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election promising to rip up America’s trade playbook. A decade on, he’s gone further than many thought possible. He’s built the highest tariff wall around the US economy in almost a century, forced the country’s top trading partners to grovel for access to the world’s biggest consumer market and toyed with the idea of scrapping the three-country free-trade pact that supports almost $2 trillion in North American commerce.