President Trump is taking bold steps to implement his economic policy of putting America first. This is a major step.
The debate will be oversimplified as “tariffs are bad and free trade is good,” but that assumes that what we currently have is in fact free trade, when in fact the Trump administration is concerned that we are being treated unfairly by our trade partners.
There are concerns about retaliation: China has said it could retaliate against US steel tariffs by targeting imports of US agricultural commodities (e.g. soybeans).
There are also concerns about the overall effects this step will have on US jobs (e.g. will it help the steel industry but disproportionately harm other industries?).
In any case it’s the fulfillment of a campaign promise and another instance of President Trump doing what Candidate Trump said he would do.
I was on Fox Business with host Charles Payne to discuss along with Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce and WSJ senior video reporter Shelby Holliday.
