#trade-war
5 entries with this tag
Reacting to a Strong Jobs Report by Demanding the Opposite of What It Called For, Trump Threatened to Halt U.S. Trade With Every Country It Runs a Deficit Against — Most of Its Major Partners — Unless the Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rates: an Act of Economic Hostage-Taking Economists Likened to the Protectionism That Deepened the Great Depression, and That One Analyst Said Could Make the Depression "Look Like a Walk in the Park"
On September 4, 2026 — hours after a stronger-than-expected jobs report showed employers added about 162,000 jobs in August, nearly triple what economists forecast, with unemployment holding at 4.1% — Trump posted an ultimatum on Truth Social: "LOWER THE RATE OR I'LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT." He was threatening to halt U.S. trade with every nation the country runs a goods deficit against — which is most of its major trading partners, from China to the European Union to Mexico — unless the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, and he doubled down when challenged. The threat is reckless on every axis. It reacts to good economic news by demanding an emergency measure (rate cuts) that a strong economy does not call for. It attempts to extort an independent central bank into serving the president's political timetable — the same assault on Fed independence documented elsewhere in this archive. And the act itself, a broad trade cutoff, is what economists have spent a century warning against: more than 1,100 of them, including Nobel laureates, have signed a letter against his tariff approach that quotes directly from the 1930 warning against the Smoot-Hawley protectionism that helped turn a downturn into the Great Depression, while banks like Scotiabank model his measures pushing trade costs to "Great Depression levels." As one analyst put it, a full halt could make the Great Depression "look like a walk in the park." Whether Trump carries it out or not, a president threatening to detonate the global trading system to bully the Fed is the kind of statement that moves markets and reveals a method.
His Trade War With Canada Collapsing and His Talk of Annexing It as the "51st State" Going Nowhere, Trump Signed an Executive Order Renaming Lake Ontario — a Great Lake the United States Shares With Canada, Bearing a 400-Year-Old Indigenous Wendat Name That Predates Both Countries — to "Lake America," a Decree That Changes Nothing but a U.S. Federal Database and Which Canada Answered in Four Words: "Then, Now and Always"
On August 27, 2026, six days after trade talks with Canada collapsed and he slapped 50% tariffs on some $20 billion of Canadian goods, Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario — one of the Great Lakes, shared along its entire length by the United States and Canada — to "Lake America," effective "immediately." The order directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to update the U.S. Geographic Names Information System so that "the lake once known as Lake Ontario will, from this day forward, be known as Lake America." It is the second time Trump has renamed an international body of water for his own country, after decreeing the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America." The trouble is that a president can rename a shared lake only in his own government's databases; he cannot rename it in Canada, which owns the other shore, or anywhere else on Earth. Lake Ontario's name is more than four centuries old, derived from the Wendat word "Ontari'io" — "the lake is beautiful, the lake is big" — predating both the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Canadian Confederation. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney answered that his country will call it Lake Ontario "then, now and always"; Ontario Premier Doug Ford agreed. As CNN dryly put it, Trump couldn't make Canada the 51st state, so he settled for renaming its lake. It is statecraft as tantrum: unable to win the trade fight or the annexation fantasy, he reached for the one thing he could do with a pen — erase a neighbor's name from an American spreadsheet and call it a victory.
Trump Announced a 50% Tariff on Canada as Punishment for Wildfire Smoke Drifting Across the Border — Blaming Canada for "Invading" America With "Filthy, Polluted, and Unhealthy Air" — and the Plan Includes a 50% Tariff on the Canadian Firefighting Aircraft the U.S. Relies On to Fight Its Own Wildfires
On July 18, 2026, with more than 900 wildfires burning across Canada, President Trump announced that the United States would hit Canada with a 50% tariff — as punishment for the smoke drifting south. He accused Canada of failing to maintain its forests and declared that the U.S. was being "invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air," saying the "pollution cost" must be added to the tariffs Canada already pays. There are two problems with tariffing a country over smoke. The first is that smoke is not a traded good; it is the product of a hotter, drier climate the administration denies exists, and it crosses the border on the wind regardless of any tariff schedule. The second is worse: the administration's plan includes a 50% tariff on — and potential decertification of — the Canadian-made aircraft that the United States itself depends on to fight wildfires. The specialized water-bombers that Canada builds are contracted by U.S. states and federal agencies precisely because America does not have enough of its own. Making those planes too expensive to keep under contract would degrade U.S. wildfire response — meaning Trump's answer to Canadian wildfire smoke is a policy that would leave America less able to fight the fires, Canadian and American alike, that produce it. It is a tariff on the weather, backed by a tariff on the firefighters.
Supreme Court Strikes Down IEEPA Tariffs 6-3
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump lacked authority to impose tariffs under IEEPA, with Chief Justice Roberts writing he lacked "peacetime authority" to tax. Over $130 billion had already been collected.
Tariff Trade War Economic Damage
Trump's tariffs constituted the largest U.S. tax increase as a percentage of GDP since 1993, costing average households $1,500/year. The U.S. lost the equivalent of 2,800 factories. The Supreme Court ruled his tariff authority was unauthorized.