The White House’s mixed messaging threatens to sabotage Trump’s trade war

Tariffs aren’t a one-dimensional tool. They can be used for all types of policy objectives, including punishing foreign states, renegotiating trade deals, raising tax revenues, and protecting domestic industries. They cannot, however, be all things to all people.
Is the goal to reshore American industry? Lower and erase trade barriers? Or simply break dependence on China? The problem for President Donald Trump’s administration is that disorganized and mixed messaging (with a heavy dose of wishful coping) threatens to undermine the whole thing.
A true restoration would take a long-term commitment to demanding — and protecting — domestic manufacturing.
On the one side of the White House’s messaging, you have Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who has said repeatedly that the administration’s goal is to bring industry back to the United States. We need to making things like the iPhone here, he argues, to “reset the power of the United States of America.”
Meantime, senior counselor for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro says the goal is to reset international trade imbalances. He argues that the World Trade Organization has created a global system that disadvantages American exports while giving foreign countries easy access to U.S. markets.
“The U.S. will now match the substantially higher tariffs and crushing non-tariff barriers imposed on us by other nations,” Navarro wrote at the Financial Times. “This is about fairness, and no one can argue with that.” In addition, he says the new American tariffs will punish those countries that help China dodge our trade barriers.
Vice President JD Vance has added on to that last point on X, arguing that we cannot be dependent on “Chinese supply chains and inflated equities.”
And then you’ve got men like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who says it’s all about “hardball negotiations” over trade barriers in order to open up a “new golden era of American trade.”
Bessent is scheduled to meet Wednesday with the House Republican Study Committee to assuage members’ concerns over the impact of a global trade war on their constituents. Bessent also traveled to meet with the president in Mar-a-Lago to corral the broader team into working from the same page.
Not all the goals are at odds! But some of them are, and expectations certainly aren’t set for which goal the administration is pursuing.
We continuously hear the term “reciprocal tariffs” from all corners of the White House team, but the term suggests countries that lower their barriers will receive mercy from the United States in exchange. About 70 countries have reportedly reached out to the president to work along those lines.
Naturally, Bessent is worried about the economy and the massive disruption to the markets that the trade war has already caused. He and a lot of Republicans seem to want this thing over with as soon as possible (with a series of wins in the meantime).
Lowered trade barriers around the world would be all well and good for trade hawks, but not so much for those who believe the United States needs to rebuild its famed industrial power. What major manufacturers are going to bear the high costs of moving operations back home from abroad to pay significantly higher wages and subject themselves to U.S. regulations if this whole thing will blow over with reciprocal negotiations? A true restoration would take a long-term commitment to demanding — and protecting — domestic manufacturing.
And then there’s China. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle generally agree that China is not a responsible trading partner and poses a strategic threat to the United States.
However, the decision to impose tariffs on countries like Vietnam — a communist nation that hates China — and allies such as Australia marks a sharp departure from that focus.
China regularly, and disingenuously, claims it can be a better trade partner than the United States. Actions like these risk affirming Beijing’s narrative.
Eliminating unfair global trade barriers would be fantastic. It’s incredible how many of our friends and allies subsidize their own industries and punish our exports while expecting easy goings for their own imports.
Reshoring American industry would be the absolute golden goose of presidential achievements, helping us to rebuild our middle class and restoring huge swaths of the heartland.
Forcing American industry out of China would be a key (though shorter-term) strategic win.
The first of these options is easy enough. Trump has proven time and again that he can force countries to renegotiate bum deals. The second is crucial to our future, but will take serious long-term commitment and a tolerance for economic pain in the meantime. The third is achievable but might look much different from either of the first two.
Trump’s longest-held political view is that the United States is getting ripped off by the world. He’s beat this drum for decades, and by all accounts he’s completely committed to changing that at long last. Vance, Lutnick ,and Navarro all share Trump’s view. They want a change and aren’t likely to retreat from that position. But if they’re intending to take the long, hard road toward reshoring, they’d best let us know what we’re in for — including what it’s going to take and what it’s going to mean to win.
Compact: Happy Liberation Day, America
Unherd: Tariffs will awaken the American Dream
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Business Insider: Trump is digging in on tariffs, and GOP leaders have his back
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