
Trump tariffs: Is the US president doomed to repeat history?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Last night US President Donald Trump announced – unilaterally – that India has agreed to take its tariffs “way down". For those of us who had hoped reality would somehow turn out more sober than Trump’s rhetoric suggests, his shock decisions have been a rude awakening.
The Trump Trade War officially started this week. (While tariffs on most goods from Canada and Mexico are now paused until 2 April at least, the reprieve could well be temporary.) Do tariffs work, and what is Trump trying to do? It’s not advisable to try and second-guess such an unpredictable man, but his role model also presided over a high-tariff regime designed to protect domestic American industries. In his inaugural address, Trump harked back to William McKinley, the 25th US president, who was in office from 1897 until he was assassinated in 1901.
The McKinley tariff protection era in the US lasted from 1890 to 1920. A century later, another Republican US president, who has called tariff “the most beautiful word in the dictionary", seems determined to throw away the painful lessons from history. Also read | In charts: What reciprocal tariff threat could mean for Indian goods “I will, very simply, put America first… America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before… America will be a manufacturing nation once again...
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