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BBC analysis: Tariffs are Trump's biggest bet yet
2025-04-04 20:40:59 / BOTA
Donald Trump's politics have changed significantly over his decades in the public sphere.
But one thing he has been consistent about, since the 1980s, is his belief that tariffs are an effective tool to boost the American economy.
Now, he is putting his presidency at risk to be right.
At his event in the White House Rose Garden, surrounded by friends, conservative politicians and cabinet secretaries, Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on a wide range of countries – allies, competitors and adversaries.
In a speech, regularly accompanied by applause from the crowd, the president recalled his long-standing support for tariffs, as well as his early criticism of free trade agreements.
The president acknowledged that he will face off in the coming days against "globalists" and "special interests," but he urged Americans to trust their instincts.
"Never forget, every prediction made by our adversaries about trade for the last 30 years has been proven completely wrong," he said.
Now, in a second term in which he is surrounded by like-minded advisers and is the dominant force in a Republican Party that controls both houses of Congress, Trump is in a position to turn his vision of a new trade policy focused on America into reality.
These policies, he said, had made the United States a wealthy nation more than a century ago and would do so again.
"For years, hard-working American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines while other nations grew rich and powerful, much of it at our expense," he said.
"With today's action, we will finally be able to make America great again - greater than ever before."
It's still a big risk for this president.
Economists of all stripes warn that these massive tariffs – 53 percent for China, 20 percent for the European Union and South Korea, with a base of 10 percent for all nations – will be passed on to American consumers, driving up prices and threatening a global recession.
Ken Roggoff, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, predicted that the chances of the US, the world's largest economy, falling into recession had increased to 50 percent following this announcement.
Trump's move also risks escalating a trade war with other countries and alienating allies with whom America has tried to strengthen ties.
The US sees Japan and South Korea as a bulwark against Chinese expansionist ambitions. But the three countries recently announced they will work together to respond to America's trade policies.
However, if Trump is successful, he would fundamentally reshape a global economic order that America had originally helped build from the ashes of World War II. He promises that this will rebuild American manufacturing, create new sources of revenue, and make America more independent and insulated from the kind of global supply chain shocks that wreaked havoc on the US during the pandemic.
It's a tall order – and one that many believe is highly unrealistic.
But for a president who seems fixated on cementing his legacy, whether through ending wars, renaming geographic locations, taking new territory or dismantling federal programs and his workforce, this is the biggest and most important prize to be won.
It would be, he said, America's "liberation day."
What seems clear, however, is that Wednesday's announcement, if he follows through, is almost certain to mark a historic change. The question is whether it will be a legacy of achievement or a glorification.
Trump's speech was triumphant – one that dismissed the potentially high costs his moves would impose on the American economy and his political standing.
But, he said, it was worth it – even if, at the end of his words, a small shadow of presidential doubt may have peaked.
"There will be a day when – hopefully – you will look back in years to come and say, you know, he was right."
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