'Don't believe him': Conservative warns Trump 'distraction' could destroy U.S. economy

President-elect Donald Trump is planning a huge new array of tariffs on foreign goods, in particular from China, Canada and Mexico — and he argues the charges are a "reciprocal" scheme, raising taxes on other countries' goods in retaliation for taxes they raised on ours.

But "don't believe him," conservative analyst Ramesh Ponnuru warned for The Washington Post.

In truth, said Ponnuru, many of Trump's tariffs weren't in response to anything but his own petty grievances — and, in any case, the whole idea of "reciprocal" tariffs is not as fair or productive as it sounds.

"Trump’s premise — that we practice free trade while other countries tax our products — is false," Ponnuru wrote. "Scott Lincicome, a policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, points out that dozens of countries have lower average tariffs than the United States does. Former senator Patrick J. Toomey (R-PA), writing in the Wall Street Journal recently, noted that Canada, Britain and Europe 'all impose lower taxes on American manufactured goods than the [United States] imposes on comparable imports.'" For instance, the U.S. taxes European trucks at 25 percent, while Europe only taxes U.S. trucks at 10 percent.

Moreover, he wrote, there's history behind that. The U.S. imposed that 25 percent tariff in retaliation for a European tax on U.S. chicken products.

"There are a few takeaways from that history. One is that 'bargaining chip' tariffs have a way of sticking around long after everyone has forgotten their supposed point. Another is that Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs is not limited to retaliatory ones: When he talked about our high tax on imported trucks in 2018, he was praising it."

The simple fact is, Ponnuru wrote, "the man just likes tariffs" — he doesn't need a real grievance about unfair trade practices to support jacking them up. And that's bad news, as economists almost universally believe Trump's tariff plans are going to skyrocket the prices of energy and consumer goods.

Already, Canadian officials are threatening to cut off their oil to our markets.

The issue of whether tariffs will truly enrich our country and make the balance of trade fairer "is something nearly all economists doubt, but that’s a debate we can have," Ponnuru concluded. On the other hand, he said, "'Reciprocity' is a distraction: Trump doesn’t take it seriously — and neither should anyone else."