The pointless trade war against Canada

Starting a trade war with Canada is one of the strangest decisions of Donald Trump’s presidency. Over at the Daily Wire, I try to make sense of it:

Politics is almost never about the merits. This is one of the toughest lessons to learn in Washington. Some people never learn it, especially intellectuals who spend their days debating evidence-based arguments about policy issues. But the gut-feeling theory of politics is key to understanding President Trump’s trade war with Canada. For him, this isn’t about economics or foreign policy. It’s personal. Also, he just likes tariffs.

That’s the first lesson. There are policy solutions to ending the trade war, such as Congress reclaiming the taking powers it delegated to the president. CEI’s most recent Agenda for Congress has details. But first, there must be an attitude change among policymakers:

While there are all kinds of merit-based economic and geopolitical reasons a strong US-Canada alliance matters, in the end it comes down to a simple fact: cooperation is better than conflict, and peace is better than war.

Read the whole thing here. CEI’s Agenda for Congress chapter on trade reform is here. My recent study on tariffs is here. Kent Lassman, Iain Murray, and my paper outlining a free trade agenda is here.