Now that President Trump has imposed tariffs, he should begin to negotiate reciprocal tariff reductions. Failure to achieve reciprocal reductions will increase the chances for American impoverishment, Republican losses in the elections of 2026, and his own impeachment in 2027.
A few weeks ago, in “Making the Great Depression Great Again,” I wrote that most economists, whether they’re Keynesians, monetarists, supply siders, or adherents to some other school of thought are united in their support of free trade and their opposition to high tariffs. They believe that high tariffs lead to inflation, recession, less international trade, and less prosperity. They site the worsening of the Great Depression following the imposition of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs in 1930.
Yet President Trump has chosen to go against the grain of conventional economic thought by imposing the high tariffs which dominated last week’s news. Exactly why he’s done so is not altogether clear. On the one hand, he said he wanted to create more manufacturing jobs in America and thereby make America more self-sufficient. On the other hand, he claims he wants to negotiate with other nations the reciprocal and mutual reduction of tariff rates, which, if successful, will actually encourage more international trade. Which of his declared goals—protectionism and the reindustrialization of America, or tariff reduction and the encouragement of more international trade—will be emphasized remains to be seen. But he should pursue the latter course of action.
Stimulation of freer trade through lower tariffs mutually agreed on will go a long way to reducing the threats to American prosperity which most economists fear if tariffs reach protectionist levels. This alone is a sufficient reason for hoping Trump can negotiate tariff reduction and support his efforts to do so. But Trump should also keep in mind that a worsening economy will hurt both the GOP and himself personally as well.
If the voters dislike the state of the economy, they always blame the incumbent president, members of the president’s party in Congress, and, at election time, anyone running under the party label. This, more than any other fact, explains the loss of Kamala Harris and a Democratic majority in the Senate in last year’s elections, as well as the retention of a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Trump and the GOP brilliantly exploited voter dissatisfaction with the alleged handling of the economy by President Biden and the Democrats and punished them accordingly.
But the same principle may come back to haunt Trump and the GOP in next year’s congressional elections as well. If the economists’ warnings of higher inflation, more unemployment, and the onset of an economic recession come true, the voters will blame President Trump and, since his name won’t be on the ballot, they’ll take out their anger with him by voting to oust Republicans from Congress. The Democrats may capture the Senate and, given that the Republicans have only a razor-thin majority in the House, will almost certainly flip control of it from Republican to Democratic.
And should the Democrats capture the House of Representatives, they will almost certainly impeach Trump. After all, the House impeached Trump after the Democrats won control following the 2018 election, and did so again after the 2020 election as well. Exactly what grounds the Democrats will use to impeach Trump in 2027 remain to be seen, but grounds will be found and impeachment will happen.
Of course, impeachment will not necessarily lead to conviction. Of the seven Republican senators who voted with the Democrats in 2021 to convict Trump, only three remain in the Senate. The chances that the Democrats will increase their share of Senate seats to two-thirds—the proportion needed to remove an impeached official from office—are practically nil. So should Trump be impeached by a Democratic-controlled House in 2027, he will be put on trial before the Senate and almost certainly be acquitted. Nonetheless, impeachment will still be an embarrassment and a distraction, and Trump should do his best to avoid it.
So Trump’s best course of action now is to negotiate with foreign leaders by promising to lower tariffs on their goods if they’ll lower tariffs on ours. Doing so, and thereby creating freer, if not altogether free, trade will lessen the ill effects which economists widely believe will otherwise befall the American economy. Should Trump be successful, he will lessen the dangers not only for the American economy, but for himself and the GOP as well.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018 and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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