At the core of former President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policies was a relatively simple—perhaps overly simplified—promise: Tariffs on Chinese-made products would drive manufacturers out of China. “Many tariffed companies will be leaving China for Vietnam and other such countries in Asia,” Trump claimed in May 2019, about a year after his tariffs were first […]
One of the companies clamoring for an extension of American tariffs on imported solar panels hasn’t actually built a solar panel in several years—and it doesn’t appear to do much of anything right now. Suniva, an Atlanta-based firm founded in 2007, is one of two companies to formally petition the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) […]
The bureaucratic process established by the Trump administration to determine which American companies should be exempted from paying tariffs on imports from China is a black box of “inconsistencies” and poorly documented decision-making, according to a new audit. In a report published last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) cast a critical eye on the […]
The last three years have provided a pretty effective lesson about how tariffs impose immense economic costs and generally don’t achieve their primary policy aims, but Democrats in Congress apparently didn’t pay close enough attention. As part of an overall $3.5 trillion federal budget framework unveiled this week, Democrats are calling for new taxes on […]
More than 18 months after Congress mandated its publication, the Biden administration on Tuesday night published a Trump administration report that sought to justify imposing tariffs on imported cars under the guise of national security. The 116-page document is, among other things, a useful reminder that tariffs imposed for ostensible national security reasons do not […]
If you follow the news, you may be under the impression that nothing ever gets done in Congress, and that Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on any serious legislation. You aren’t alone. Look at the inordinate praise the “bipartisan” infrastructure deal is getting. This widespread wonder highlights the mistaken belief that our awful hyperpartisan era […]