Trump’s Tariff Tantrum Earns Scathing Rebuke From The Wall Street Journal

The spot featured a 1987 Ronald Reagan speech warning about the dangers of tariffs. Trump falsely called it “fake,” declared trade talks with Canada over and slapped an extra 10% tariff on Canadian goods.

The Journal, a longtime critic of Trump’s tariff policies, said he was “wrong about the Reagan speech” and “he was wrong when he claimed on social media that ‘Ronald Reagan LOVED tariffs for purposes of National Security and the Economy,’” noting the former president “was a free trader.”

Trump “has been fortunate that his tariffs haven’t triggered much retaliation, which has spared us from a global trade war,” the paper’s conservative editorial board wrote. “But the tariffs are doing economic damage by raising costs for consumers and businesses and by dampening animal spirits that should be soaring with his tax bill and deregulation.”

“He can boast about tariffs all he wants,” the editorial concluded, “but he shouldn’t get away with taking Reagan’s trade beliefs in vain.”