Perspective: Why Trump keeps promoting tariffs — even as they hurt his base
Steel rods produced at the Gerdau Ameristeel mill in St. Paul, Minn., await shipment on May 9. By Keith W. Harris Keith W. Harris is a doctoral candidate at Purdue University studying economic and political history in the early American republic.
Since the Colonial period, trade has helped Americans define their place in the world. In fact, demands for freer trade motivated movement toward the Revolutionary War and American independence. Economic discontent regarding restrictions on Colonial commerce such as the tax on imports and stricter enforcement against smuggling in the Townshend Acts sparked the immediate backlash against Britain.
Faced with no power to pursue reciprocity, political elites huddled in Philadelphia and emerged with a new, strengthened central government that seized control of trade policy from the states and put it into the hands of Congress. A centralized government in control of trade policy offered Americans the ability, according to James Madison, “to obtain a reciprocity in trade” through tariffs.
Given this situation, Jefferson declared that “it behooves us to protect our citizens, their commerce and navigation, by counter prohibitions, duties and regulations, also.” Jefferson laid out the guiding philosophy of reciprocity in his declaration that “free commerce and navigation are not to be given in exchange for restrictions and vexations; nor are they likely to produce a relaxation of them.
Consider the Embargo Act of 1807. The early years of the 19th century saw Britain and France embroiled in warfare with each other, making Europe hostile territory for neutral ships engaged in trade. While America declared neutrality, Britain and France violated this declaration by preventing American ships from entering European ports.
A younger generation of political leaders, led by Kentucky congressman Henry Clay, realized that reciprocity didn’t work. Instead, they promoted tariffs for the purpose of looking inward and fostering a developed manufacturing sector, abandoning an outward focus on foreign reciprocity in trade.
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