Times of India: Road to Trade War

Just before a special election in a congressional district spanning suburbs and rural areas of southwestern Pennsylvania, the US president announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports for the purposes of national security. The hope was to rally blue-collar and rural workers to vote for the Republican candidate, the “world economy be damned,” as YaleGlobal founding editor Nayan Chanda notes. The ploy did not work. A district that favored Republicans and Donald Trump by 19 points in the 2016 instead elected Democrat Conor Lamb. In his column for the Times of India, published before the election, Chanda concludes the special election may signal that US voters are wary of Trump’s protectionist agenda and empty promises. The abrupt move on steel and aluminum “opens the door to a tariff war spreading to other commodities as countries retaliate.” China, a target for Trump, accounts for less than 5 percent of steel imports and less than 10 percent of aluminum imports, and the tariff hits US allies like Canada and Europe. Allies and US manufacturers alike are pressing for a series of exemptions that could make the tariffs meaningless. – YaleGlobal