Americans on Tuesday went to the polls with the state of the economy top of mind, and their assessment of President Trump’s signature economic policy wasn’t kind. In addition to being costly, destructive, and often illegal, sweeping tariffs on nearly every country in the world have proven politically disastrous.
There’s an intense online debate over the relative contribution of the Iran war and tariffs to the GOP defeat that’s a topic for another day, although there’s no doubt that the Iran war–driven increases in fuel and fertilizer prices were politically brutal. Those higher prices, though, were an unintended byproduct of the war, whereas making goods more costly was a direct, deliberate effect of the tariffs.
Inflation was the top concern of voters in the midterms, just as it had been in 2024, as well. Yet Trump insisted on following his victory with a comprehensive tariff regime. When the Supreme Court struck down his first effort, the president turned to another decades-old statute to reconstitute the duties, and then another. The average tariff rate on U.S. imports shot to the highest level since the Great Depression.
Republicans were left with a deeply unpopular tax hike hanging around their necks. According to exit polls, 65 percent of midterm voters believed that Trump’s tariffs had hurt the national economy, and 63 percent thought they had hurt the economy in their area. Throughout the election cycle, Democrats spent more than $58 million on ads criticizing tariffs. Republicans, by contrast, spent zero money on ads mentioning the policy.
Voters have many good reasons to be upset. Tariffs cost families hundreds to thousands of dollars per year in added expenses — more than most received in tax relief from Republicans’ reconciliation law. Foreign retaliation hammered farmers’ export markets while raising the cost of critical inputs. Domestic manufacturers, the tariffs’ supposed beneficiaries, have faced a blizzard of ever-changing rules and duty rates. Expansion has been concentrated in industries exempted from tariffs, and struggling homebuilders have been slammed by higher material costs.
Americans are also furious about corruption, and the federal trade office under Trump has been a hotbed of backroom deals. Major companies and politically connected industries have secured special carve-outs, while smaller importers suffer. Trump has used tariffs as a cudgel to win questionable investment commitments from foreign countries, when, perversely for his purposes, huge financial inflows would widen the trade deficit.
In their geostrategic effects, Trump’s unprovoked trade wars have needlessly alienated close allies such as Canada and the European Union, risking pushing the former somewhat closer to China — not something to be welcomed. Tariffs have also pushed more neutral countries toward Beijing, which continues to ink free trade agreements. While transshipment of Chinese goods through Asian nations is a problem, by tariffing those countries indiscriminately and too heavily, Trump has punished companies that moved production out of China for better market access, at a time when the U.S. should be trying to encourage such moves.
As noted above, the tariff regime is detached from the law. Americans have seen their imports taxed without a vote by their representatives. The statutory delegations underlying the president’s duties are so vague and broad as to give him almost limitless discretion. Trump has made a mockery of “emergency” justifications. In the name of “national security,” he has penalized imports of Canadian aluminum, fire extinguishers, and kitchen cabinets. To support other tariffs, Trump has absurdly claimed that America suffers from a balance-of-payments deficit that cannot exist mathematically, and that Switzerland is just as guilty of forced labor as China.
For too long, Congress has abdicated its Article I authority over tariffs, assuming the president would exercise it responsibly. It should no longer do so. Trump has shown he will not rescind his favorite policy voluntarily, and leaving presidential authorities in place would be unacceptable even if he did change his mind. Lawmakers of both parties need to scour the statute books and eliminate or dramatically tighten every open-ended delegation of tariff power. Short of that, they must require congressional approval of every new trade restriction within a reasonable period, as Republicans proposed not long ago. Only then will the Constitution’s taxing power be back where the Founders placed it.
In the meantime, lame-duck Republican majorities could show their willingness to address Americans’ concerns by voting to repeal every tariff imposed in the past two years (or at least limit them to areas of true strategic importance). Such a gesture would be the start of an affordability agenda worthy of the name, and a step toward healing the GOP’s wounded reputation for sound economic stewardship.