WSJ journalist admits Trump is winning the trade war

Daily Mail​

3 days ago

The Wall Street Journal's chief economics correspondent has delivered a surprise assessment of President Donald Trump 's trade policies while criticizing the cruel nickname assigned to him after he 'chickened out' of imposing extreme tariffs. Greg Ip published his latest take on Trump's tariff wars in the publication on Tuesday, sensationally noting Trump is ' winning' on trade policy.
'Trump has, by his own definition of success, already won his trade war,' Ip wrote, 'even without [the] deals' he vowed to reach with foreign allies. Trump faced harsh criticism for backing down on his 'Liberation Day' tariffs, earning him the moniker 'TACO' for 'Trump Always Chickens Out .'
After threatening extraordinary reciprocal tariffs on most countries, markets crashed and doomsday economists feared a recession was inevitable. In the midst of the backlash, Trump walked back on the tariffs, instead offering countries 90 days to reach new agreements with his administration . Some within his inner circle were boasting of the possibility of achieving 90 deals in 90 days.
That deadline has since passed, and Trump has inked one deal with the UK, and two more are on track with Vietnam and Indonesia. But Ip (pictured) notes this is not necessarily a negative for Trump. To the contrary, Ip said Trump's behavior leading to this point suggests he was never particularly keen on making such deals to begin with.
'This narrative misconstrues Trump's goals, overstates the importance of deals and breeds complacency about his willingness to raise tariffs,' Ip wrote. When Trump backed down on his steep tariffs, markets rallied and economists breathed a sigh of relief. But he never removed the 10 percent baseline tariff, which he had initially imposed on all goods coming into the United States.
On the campaign trail, Ip notes, a 10 percent tariff seemed like worst-case scenario for markets. Now, in the face of Trump's brash actions and threats of tariffs as high as 145 percent (on China), the 10 percent tariff appears to have flown under the radar, now considered the best-case outcome for nations coming to the negotiating table . In June alone, Treasury pocketed $27 billion in customs revenue - $20 billion more than it did in the same month last year.
With higher tariffs on steel and aluminum, the average tariff for all goods coming into the United States as of July 2 was 13.4 percent. Last year, it was 2.3 percent. Ip argues in his piece that Trump has no major need to forge new trade deals, because doing so would imply backing down or compromising on something he wants - which isn't often the Trump way .
But while he said Trump is winning the trade war he created, Ip noted local manufacturing has not skyrocketed as Trump had hoped it would. Consumers in America are also increasingly feeling the pinch as businesses up their prices to accommodate the tariffs they're now paying on imported goods. Ip concluded: 'Trump might emerge a winner from his trade wars; it remains to be seen if the U.S. will as well.'
Ip's assessment of Trump's trade policy may ruffle feathers at the publication, which has drawn Trump's ire a number of times during this administration. In May, he gave a reporter from the publication a verbal lashing after asking a question on board Air Force 1. 'Boy, you people treat us so badly,' he said of the paper Murdoch acquired in 2007.
'Wall Street Journal has truly gone to hell... Rotten newspaper. You hear me? What I said? It's a rotten newspaper.' Months earlier, he panned it as a 'globalist' rag and 'polluted' after it criticized his tariffs. In March, the paper sensationally suggested 'someone should sue' over the tariffs and said: 'He's treating the North American economy as a personal plaything, as markets gyrate with each presidential whim.'