Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 8 April 2025
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
It is going to be a revolting week
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – In the wake of ill-conceived, trade-imploding tariffs, a sea of revolts has emerged from the public, trading partners, investors, corporate leaders, administration insiders, and Congress. All the while, President Donald Trump is playing golf at Mar-a-Lago although he and his golf cart seem to be shrinking by the hour as this revolting week threatens to weaken his entire presidency.
Of the revolting entities only the public is directly attacking Trump through massive protests and communications to their elected representatives. All the other revolutionaries are only attacking Trump surrogates because they well know he treats criticism as disloyalty deserving of retribution.
The trading partner responses have run the gamut from China’s immediate 34 percent retaliatory tariff to the EU’s threatened 20 percent reciprocal tariff to Britain’s acceptance of the low 10 percent Trump tariff to Mexico’s relief that USMCA (that replaced NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement) is holding while the 25 percent tariff on automobiles may be temporary. In the end, the trading partner revolt may fracture as nations place self-interest over unified responses.
Meanwhile, the investor revolt was instantaneous and devastating. The stock market crashed. However, this can reverse in a blink if Trump begins to retreat. Otherwise, the rout will continue and may prove to be the most convincing argument against his misguided tariff policy.
In the midst of all this, corporate leaders are flocking to Mar-a-Lago on their corporate jets for one-on-ones with the president. Their mission is clear: convince the president that he has been ill-advised by the likes of Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller. Navaro, a discredited conspiracy theorist, is the architect of the tariff policy. Miller is the right wing idealogue literally closest to the president’s ear.
Of those dissidents inside the administration the surprise voice came from Elon Musk, the slash-and-burn head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) who is responsible for gleefully shuttering agencies and the mass firing of government employees, all without congressional authority. But money talks. His EV car company Tesla has lost half its market value in the last three months, in part due to his unpopular DOGE activities and in part due to the Trump tariffs. It should not have come as a surprise that such a dramatic drop in wealth would evoke a response, and it did. Musk is calling for a “free trade zone between Europe and North America,” and he derided Navarro as a man who “ain’t built” anything. So far, the only response from the administration was that Musk will soon be gone.
Finally, a congressional revolt has emerged, mostly in the Senate. The until-now docile Republican senators are at last remembering their body is a co-equal branch of government, that they, not the president, have the power to enact tariffs, that the president’s assertion under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act authorizes him to enact tariffs is bogus because it is based upon fentanyl trafficking. In fact, fentanyl coming from Canada is miniscule and is surpassed by fentanyl going the other way from the U.S. to Canada.
Senators are being inundated by constituents who are witnessing their 401k stock portfolios collapse and anticipating higher prices, especially on cars. Now fearing the voters more than being “primaried” out of their seats by Trump, senators are preparing for a march on the White House, literally or figuratively. And now, when a senator such as Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has joined the group, Trump must be saying, “Houston, we have a problem.”
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
              Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
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END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND