Trump at (trade) war

Boston Globe

16-04-2025

'This isn't how presidents go to war,' said Andrew J. Bacevich Jr., professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University. 'The only explanation for Trump's behavior and the rhetorical posture he takes is that he has persuaded himself, and he thinks he has persuaded us, that whatever he does as the ultimate authority will be a resounding success.'
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Modern wartime presidents from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush have followed an ineluctable pattern of preparing and then leading the country into war, even conflicts following unexpected provocations such as the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the 2001 attacks by al Qaeda.
They had deep discussions with their aides and outside their own circle of counselors. They consulted with Congress. They reached out to members of the opposite party to seek, and win, bipartisan backing for their war plans. They delivered major addresses to explain the rationale for war and to rally the country. They asked for the support of other nations and fortified alliances. They set out goals.
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Trump prizes his image as a different kind of president, as a disrupter who pays no heed to the barriers other chief executives have honored, who acts by instinct, and who is not governed by convention or tradition. In that regard, the president's tariffs do fit a pattern — his, not those of his predecessors.
Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama were devoted readers of presidential biographies. Mr. Trump is ahistorical. Two months into his first term, he spoke of Abraham Lincoln during a
And though the Constitution makes plain that trade policy is the province of Congress — both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee have trade subcommittees — Trump hasn't been reading congressional leaders into his plans, let alone seeking legislative approval from them.
Sen. Reed Smoot (R-Utah), left, and Rep. Willis C. Hawley (R-Oregon) outside the US Capitol in December 1929. Their tariff bill was debated by the Senate and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover in June 1930.
National Photo Company/Library of Congress
Former presidents Lyndon B. Johnson (in the case of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that led to the Vietnam War), George H.W. Bush (the Gulf War), and George W. Bush (the War on Terror and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq), sought, and won, the support of Congress for their military actions. The Senate (98-0) and the House (420-1) approved the Bush initiative to track down and punish those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
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'It's always best if Congress ratifies the reality,' said Andrew H. Card Jr., who was White House chief of staff in President George W. Bush's administration at the time. 'Trump's been less cognizant of getting Congress involved. And there's the need for a nationwide address — a real speech, not sound bites, setting out the path to success and what constitutes success.'
Trump also has spurned the more narrow, but more directly relevant, presidential pattern in trade policy.
'To change the direction of policy overnight in such a huge way is historically unprecedented,' said Douglas Irwin, the Dartmouth College economist regarded as the leading academic authority on tariffs. 'Whenever you get big shifts in the direction of trade policy, it's important to get consensus, to set out goals.'
Ordinarily, lawmakers and executive-branch officials modify current trade duties only slightly. These modest adjustments customarily are incremental — but even then, they're subject to extensive debate.
The most historically significant modern tariff bill, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, was the subject of extensive public debate and took a year and a half to win congressional approval. The North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA, was supported by three presidents — two Republicans, Ronald Reagan and the elder Bush, and one Democrat, Clinton. Trump's major first-term tariff initiatives, the duties against China and the steel tariffs, both promulgated in 2018, were subject to more considerable study than the current round.
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'In this case, within weeks, a half-dozen people came up with huge changes in the direction of trade policy affecting allies, trading partners, and so many businesses,' said Irwin. 'Agreements approved by Congress — out the window. Agreements Trump made himself — out the window. This isn't good policy making.'
This column first appeared in
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David Shribman is a nationally syndicated columnist. He can be reached at