I am squarely for a protective tariff. The proposals of our opponents would place our farmers and workers in competition with peasant and sweated labor products.
-p.290 The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover 1929-1941 The Great Depression published 1952
And just like that history rhymes again.
Last night the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump signed the following proclamation (via WhiteHouse.gov) which takes effect on August 19, 2026:
(excerpted)
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 338; section 301 of title 3, United States Code; and section 604, do hereby proclaim as follows:
(1) Except as otherwise provided in this proclamation, certain products of Canada, as set forth in Annex II to this proclamation, imported into the United States shall be subject to an additional ad valorem duty of 50 percent, effective for goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on August 19, 2026.
Here we go again, right back to the April 2025 insanity. Of course this is not the end of this fiasco as more news was broken today about the plans of this administration regarding further tariffs to replace those expiring on Friday.
From the Financial Times earlier today:
Donald Trump prepares fresh tariff barrage with 10% levies set to expire
This will end poorly but much like Trump’s intensifying war clock, the announcement of the new tariffs should not hit the newswires until after 4:01 p.m. on Friday afternoon. USTR Greer was quite vague about the timing but did indicate that there are more tariffs forthcoming sooner rather than later.
US Trade Representative Jameson Greer seemed to confirm this on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning:
With 25% punitive tariffs on Brazil and 50% on Canada, it is only a matter of time before this expands beyond the USMCA region and our hemisphere and begins to spread globally as the interview above demonstrates.
This statement from the article about the reinstatement of tariffs via CNBC should scare sane capitalists in the United States:
Trade experts told CNBC that tariffs imposed following a forced labor probe are likely to last a long time due to their stronger legal footing and the political risk that would come with eliminating them.
“It’s much harder” for a future presidential administration “to roll back tariffs that are intended to help combat forced labor,” Tiffany Smith, vice president of global trade policy at the National Foreign Trade Council, said. “I think you have to expect that the 301 tariffs are going to be much more durable.”
This brings us back to the original justifications thrown about to advocate for the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs of 1930. Blame the foreigners, not horrible economic and monetary policy for America’s inability to compete. While protectionism might sound like a great idea as more Americans are forced to compete with foreigners and illegal aliens for the remnants of the gig economy, this administration refuses to commit to its promise to equalize the playing field by removing those illegals from our shores and in fact is supportive of the farm worker amnesty attached to the funding bill working its way through the House.
I fear the Trump regime is on the same path as the “Liberation Day” tariffs where even barren islands full of penguins were taxed in an absurd fashion. The reality is that it demonstrates the Republican Party learned nothing from its twenty years in the dark weeds of history from 1932 to 1952.
God help us should an extreme leftist of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt “workers unite” mantra seize power in 2028.
