January 8, 2018 2:56PM

Colin Grabow: In Spite of Trump’s Bluster, U.S. Trade Status Quo is Intact

By Cato Editors

In an op-ed published today on The Hill, trade policy analyst Colin Grabow shows that President Trump has not, in fact, raised a single tariff in his first year in office. Although Trump took the momentously disruptive steps of withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and has threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the North American Free Trade Agreement, "U.S. trade policy  . . . is largely in the same place it was when President Obama left office." 

Have saner voices inside the White House prevailed, or is this just the calm before the storm? The answer should be apparent in the coming months, and possibly even weeks, as a series of trade-related deadlines will force the president to show his hand.

Grabow discusses the inflection points in 2018 that may give Trump an opportunity to reverse course and start imposing tariffs, including ongoing investigations into the national security implications of steel and aluminum imports; an investigation into alleged trade violations committed by China related to technology transfer, intellectual property and its innovation policies; and the U.S. International Trade Commission's recommendations for tariffs on imported solar cell and washing machine. Finally, NAFTA renegotiations and the recent kickoff of renegotiations for the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement may also shed light on Trump's intentions for trade policy in 2018.

He concludes:

The trade story could very well still end in tears, with plenty of opportunities in the New Year for Trump to choose a protectionist path.

But a more optimistic scenario exists: Amid record stock market highs and an unemployment rate trending toward 4 percent, Trump could be swayed by arguments senior administration officials are reportedly making. 

Namely, that tariff increases would amount to throwing a monkey wrench into an economic machine that is nicely humming along. For the sake of the country, let’s hope they prevail. 

You can read the full op-ed ("Tariffs would throw a monkey wrench into humming economy") here, and click here to see more of Colin Grabow's writing, along with other scholars from Cato's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies.