The US Chamber of Commerce has evaluated the costs of the “easy to win” trade wars President Trump is kicking off, and broken them down by state. What does Minnesota stand to lose?
Tariffs imposed by the United States are nothing more than a tax increase on American consumers and businesses–including manufacturers, farmers, and technology companies–who will all pay more for commonly used products and materials.
Retaliatory tariffs imposed by other countries on U.S. exports will make American-made goods more expensive, resulting in lost sales and ultimately lost jobs here at home.
This is the wrong approach, and it threatens to derail our nation’s recent economic resurgence.
This is coming from a bastion of Republican support. As the Republican Party becomes the Party of Trump, of right-wing ideology (that being, manic loyalty to Trump) and Trump’s poorly thought out political actions, the Chamber of Commerce becomes a marker of sorts of just how far the GOP has slunk from its old mooring at the pier of capitalism, free markets, and a strong defense, and moved to the pier of mercantilism, xenophobia, and a cult of personality that might begin to verge on Mao-like someday. It’s not hard to attribute some principle to the CoC, while the Republicans, as embodied by Trump, are now more or less moving through a self-interested set of political moves, not motivated by love of country, but love of self.
Kevin Drum thinks this means the cultural war we’ve been expecting is about to begin:
Trump hasn’t responded with a devastating tweet yet, but I’m sure he will eventually. At this point, though, China has retaliated against Trump. Canada has retaliated against Trump. Europe has retaliated against Trump. And now the Chamber of Commerce has retaliated against Trump. The battle is finally fully engaged.
I don’t know that Trump considered the CoC to be a vital ally, so he may not consider their ‘betrayal’ to be much of an event. But time will tell.
