In 2024, President Donald Trump ran for re-election on, among other issues, his intentions to impose tariffs on our trading partners.

His basis for igniting an international trade war was that all of our trading partners were allegedly cheating the U.S. on trade, and every president before Trump had allowed this abuse to continue. Only he, Donald Trump, could right these egregious wrongs and rebuild America internationally.

Trump further argued that the economy he inherited from the Biden administration was the worst in history and Trump’s tariff policy would restore American greatness.

These premises were used for what has become perhaps the single biggest policy mistake since the Iraq war during the second Bush administration.

And the premises were built upon either Trump’s ignorance of the facts or an astonishing lack of awareness of trade and the global economy.

These are the facts:

• Trump inherited an economy that grew by a healthy 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024. By the end of Trump’s first quarter in 2025, the economy had shrunk by 0.3 percent, marking the first contraction since the start of the pandemic.

• The stock markets suffered the third-worst performance in U.S. history in the first quarter of Trump’s second presidency (ChatGPT).

• Consumer confidence fell by 29 percent in the first quarter of 2025, to the lowest level since the 1980s.

All of these facts contradict Trump’s claims that he inherited a terrible economy, suggesting that if this were a premise to overturn the worldwide trade order, it was a false premise.

The facts about global trade are no less unfriendly to Trump’s claim, “they’re ripping us off.” The worldwide average trade tariff against US goods stood at 2.39 percent as recently as 2017 statistics. As of 2021, European Union tariffs stand at a minuscule 1.39 percent, hardly a rip-off. Tariffs from the United Kingdom (Trump’s first newly announced trade agreement outline) stood at 0.72 percent (Wikipedia). This suggests it should not be challenging to create a trade agreement with a nation that already has a virtually free-trade policy with the U.S.

Trump’s tariffs on all our trading partners, including Canada and Mexico, lack merit and factual evidence. It is, in effect, a trade war wholly invented by Trump, and without foundation.

There are trade practices between the U.S. and some of its trading partners that are unfair overall. Trade with China is imbalanced. While China imposes a moderate 2.31 percent tariff on U.S. goods overall, it has a history of stealing U.S. technology for products manufactured there and has been a major player in the spread of fentanyl into the U.S. While both issues are directly unrelated to trade, given the large scale of trade with the U.S., trade can be used to address a demand for an end to these practices.

And there are nations that protect specific industries that they determine to be crucial to national interest. For example, in the U.S., we protect our sugar industry from worldwide competition through import restrictions, price supports, marketing allotments, and loan programs. We do not allow free and fair trade in sugar.

Finally, Trump’s mission to change global trade is, according to most economists, destined to disrupt trade, harm consumers, and alienate our trading partners. Recently, over 1,500 economists signed a declaration stating that Trump’s trade wars are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of economics.

Essentially, trade barriers will increase the monetary flow into the U.S. treasury while simultaneously raising prices and inflation for American consumers.

Trump’s policy will create losers, and we, the consumers, are among them.

Jim Crawford is a retired educator and political enthusiast living here in the Tri-State.