LINCOLNVILLE, Maine — Former President Donald Trump calls himself a “tariff guy” and says taxes on imported goods are “the greatest thing ever invented,” so it’s no surprise Vice President Kamala Harris says so. It attacked the heart of the GOP candidate’s economic agenda like bad politics.
But what’s more surprising is that a Democratic member of the House of Representatives introduced it a bill Codifying Trump’s 10% across-the-board tariffs reveals how longstanding trade policy has torn both sides apart.
Tariffs can trace their roots back to ancient Athens and other historical civilizations is the main source of income for the federal government until 1914, when the income tax replaced them. But in the late 20th century, they largely fell out of favor as the United States led a global free trade revolution.
The fall of trade barriers lowered the price of consumer goods and grew many economies around the world. But critics say unrestricted free trade has also destroyed American manufacturing and good-paying, often unionized jobs because domestic factories can’t compete with the lower costs of manufacturing overseas.
“Other countries will finally pay us back after 75 years for what we’ve done to the world, and the tariffs will be significant,” Trump said this week.
Rep. Jared Golden, a heterodox moderate Democrat from Maine who faces a tough re-election this year, introduced a bill on Wednesday aimed at promoting domestic manufacturing and limiting US dependence on foreign goods.
“Undoubtedly, Pres. Trump is the first person in my lifetime to lead tariffs, he’s hardly the first person to think about it,” Golden said in an interview. “Our Founding Fathers understood in the nation’s early years that we must avoid becoming a nation of consumers of foreign goods, because that is addictive.”
Harris and his campaign have criticized Trump’s idea of tariffs as a whole, saying they would raise prices for consumers already struggling with record high costs due to inflation.
“It would be a sales tax on the American people,” he said interview Wednesday with MSNBC. “You don’t just throw around the idea of tariffs, and that’s part of the problem with Donald Trump … He’s not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues.”
There are also critics of Trump’s tariff plan.
Libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. submitted a bill this month to bar any president from raising tariffs without congressional approval — a clear blow to Trump, who has said he would impose tariff policies through executive action alone. (Trump was able to raise tariffs without congressional approval in his first term.)
Despite other attacks on Harris and Trump’s tariffs, the Biden-Harris administration decided save a portion of the fares During his first term, Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum and even increased tariffs on strategic sectors such as electric vehicles and semiconductors.
In the MSNBC interview, Harris did not address those tariffs.
Still, Biden and Harris have consistently criticized the tariffs as a whole.”regardlessinstruments that risk “destabilizing our allies,” argue that targeted sanctions do not carry the risks of more widespread inflation.
Like gold some others Those who favor tariffs say whether Trump supports the idea or not, a comprehensive tariff would be good for American workers and national security.
Even if Trump doesn’t, Golden acknowledges that tariffs will raise the prices of imported goods, but says those higher costs will make domestically produced products more competitive and put pressure on quality because imported products can no longer compete on price alone.
“After World War II, it made sense to continue globalization because we were one of the last industrialized economies,” Golden said. “That model no longer applies today.”
Economists in general more negative about tariffs. Many say the information is clear freer trade leads to more economic growth, and they say Trump will have sweeping tariffs raising inflation and can cost jobs.
Politically, tariffs seem to be quite popular lately Reuters/Ipsos poll 56% of Americans support the idea, and that number is likely to increase in a Trump-leaning district like Golden’s, where, like many others, many factories have closed over the past 40 years.