The single most important issue in polls during the last presidential campaign was inflation. Thus it is ironic that one policy Donald Trump has preached with particular fervor is tariffs, the goal of which is to raise prices.
But the greater irony of Trump’s tariff plans is that America’s tariff system is the quintessential example of what he sometimes attacks as the deep state. Tariffs are managed by opaque bureaucracies and manipulated by high-priced lobbyists in order to extract funds from American consumers. And if one’s goal is to pare back the powers of the modern administrative state, abolishing the tariff system would be a good place to start.
