Adam Ozimek

Tariffs Fail Without Consensus, Chaos Undermines Industrial Policy

The problem with "give tariffs time" as a plan is that they have been implemented in a way that won't stand up to courts, there is not a bipartisan consensus supporting them, and voters hate them now because they have been haphazard, chaotic, unstrategic, and increased prices with no benefit. For industrial policy to work you need to build a consensus that simply doesn't exist here. The approach taken with these tariffs adds to the unsustainability that would doom them even if the optimists were right about what they could do, which they aren't.