Trump's tariffs are set to make reshoring harder and trade deficits bigger.
The United States, thanks to President Donald Trump's trade wars, has already managed something similar, provoking widespread boycotts of U.S. goods in Canada and Europe , closing off some of the main export markets for U.S. farm goods , and, most recently, shutting the door for Boeing on one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets, China. In the annals of overestimating one's trade leverage and then inflicting own-goals, the Confederacy's 1861 embargo on the exports of its one product—cotton—in the hopes of coercing foreign countries into supporting the nascent nation always held pride of place. Until this spring. In the annals of overestimating one's trade leverage and then inflicting own-goals, the Confederacy's 1861 embargo on the exports of its one product—cotton—in the hopes of coercing foreign countries into supporting the nascent nation always held pride of place. Until this spring. The United States, thanks to President Donald Trump's trade wars, has already managed something similar, provoking widespread boycotts of U.S. goods in Canada and Europe, closing off some of the main export markets for U.S. farm goods, and, most recently, shutting the door for Boeing on one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets, China. Beyond the inherent contradictions that underlie the ever-shifting rationales for Trump's tariff policies—negotiated truces will lower tariffs, which will lower tariff revenues and undercut any reshoring of manufacturing, while permanent high tariffs make negotiations pointless—there is more to come, starting with the continued use of national security justifications to build bigger protectionist walls. Trump already leaned on so-called Section 232 investigations to hike duties on steel and aluminum in his first term, and again in his second. He has also invoked national security to shield U.S. automakers from such threats as Canadian transmissions. He has announced Section 232 investigations into copper (a cornerstone of…