Good Read - Trump's tariffs have become his Vietnam - and the right is breaking ranks

[malaise]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/05/trump-tariffs-republicans

Donald Trump’s trade war has become his quagmire: legal, economic and political. On 28 May, the court of international trade ruled his tariffs exceeded his constitutional authority. Point by point, the decision decimated Trump’s arguments as flimsy and false, implicitly castigated the Republican Congress for abdicating its constitutional responsibility, and reminded other courts, not least the supreme court, of the judicial branch’s obligation to exercise its authority regardless of the blustering of the executive and the fecklessness of the legislative branches.

Trump’s tariffs, along with his withdrawal of active support for Ukraine and passivity toward his strongman father figure Vladimir Putin, have broken the western alliance, forcing the west to make its own arrangements with China, and cementing the idea for a generation to come that the United States is an untrustworthy and unstable partner.

On the economic front, Trump’s tariffs have already begun to increase inflation, shutter trade, devalue the dollar, and undermine manufacturing. They will soon create shortages of all sorts of goods, ruin small business, and force layoffs that bring about stagflation that has not been seen since the 1970s, which was then the result of an external oil shock, not self-harm. On 3 June, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that as a result, principally, of Trump’s tariffs, the US will suffer a decline in the rate of growth from what had been forecast this year. “Lower growth and less trade will hit incomes and slow job growth,” the OECD stated.

As a political matter, besides being unpopular, Trump’s tariffs, in combination with his assaults on the institutions of civil and legal society, have drawn out the most intelligent and skillful members of the conservative legal establishment, who themselves have been some of the most crucial players in the rise of the right wing, to man the ramparts against him. These are not the familiar Never Trumpers, but newly engaged and potentially more dangerous foes.

[Norrrm]

1. Not a problem to Trump and his minions. They will continue to blame Biden.

[Justice Brandeis]

2. Trump could end all tariffs immediately with the stroke of a pen if he wanted to.

He is choosing not to. Ending the Vietnam war with similar alacrity would have been much harder for LBJ or Nixon.

[newdeal2]

3. This is a good analogy

He can’t let go of this idea and it will hopefully be his undoing.