It has been a year since Donald Trump and the Republican Party took back the White House in a vicious campaign which promised to address inflation, lower the price of eggs and gas, and make things more affordable overall.
Instead, the word “tariff” has almost become synonymous with the economic policy of the Trump administration.
Just hours after President Trump was sworn in for the second time, he announced record 25 percent tariffs against Canada and Mexico.
By early March, tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China were ushered in, with economic retaliation and diplomatic skirmishes following from each country. Mexico, Canada and China are the United States’ top three trading partners. In fact, one third of all trade that the United States engages in is with these three countries.
It is nothing new that the Republican Party claims to be the party of fiscal responsibility. However, the party that once championed intense capitalism and trickle down economics has succumbed to an economic isolationism of sorts.
Under the Trump administration, the national debt is currently soaring to a record $37 trillion. Does that seem responsible to you?
To put that into perspective, the national debt of the United States exceeds the country’s entire GDP by more than $6 trillion. The last time that the United States had a balanced budget was during the 1990s under the leadership of the Democratic President Bill Clinton.
Although it is easy to believe that rising national debt does not have an impact on the financial well-being of everyday people, it is outlined by the Government Accountability Office that it could lead to “higher borrowing costs for things like mortgages and cars, lower wages from businesses having less money available to invest, and more expensive goods and services.”
President Trump argues that government debt will be addressed through earnings made from tariffs. However, there are quite a few logical and mathematical errors with this argument. Firstly, the Trump imposed tariffs have only added about $167 million to tariff revenue. Even including all tariff earnings, it is still not sufficient enough to take on the enormous amount of national debt that the United States is facing.
A better solution (and one that Republicans do not seem to be keen on) to paying off some of the national debt is through federal income tax revenue, which is 14 times more profitable than tariffs.
The Trump Administration still has a long way to go if they wish to prove to the American people that the Republican Party is capable of being fiscally responsible. We are yet to see if the rest of the second Trump era will be defined by more tariffs and debt, or if change will truly be attempted.
