It seems President Donald Trump can’t get enough with his beloved tariffs. On Monday, Trump laid out plans for supplying new weapons to Ukraine through NATO in further attempts to pressure Russia into ending its war efforts in Ukraine. According to NBC News, Trump has stated that “We’re going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days” and that “It’s very simple and they’ll be at 100%.” This draws from Trump’s apparent fatigue with the Ukraine – Russia conflict with him stating, according to CNN, “I felt we had a deal about four times, but it just kept going on and on” and that “I use trade for a lot of things, but it’s great for settling wars.”
With the tariff war Trump waged with China that started earlier this year having drastic effects and largely contributed to an observable decline in the U.S. economy, Trump’s continued obsession with tariffs could continue to have its toll in the future. A prolonged tariff war, if Trump’s threat falls through, could potentially impede the global economy rather than just that of Russia as he is hoping.
It seems as of late, Trump’s solution for many of his foreign policies seems to fall on tariffs, with his tariff war with China being the biggest example, with other examples including Canada, Mexico and so on. Even for his more menial petty issues, he seems to fall to tariffs such as the foreign film tariff he proposed a few months ago. Don’t get me wrong, there is an intended purpose for tariffs, by design, to fill, however when does it become too much?
