HUDSON INSTITUTE 1ASSESSING TRUMP’S TRADE AND TARIFF POLICIES: THE BASICS
POLICY MEMO
Assessing Trump’s Trade and
Tariff Policies: The Basics
DR. JOHN LEE
Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
May 2025
behind general tariffs and how such measures ought to be
assessed as an instrument of policy.
In many cases, assessments of Trump’s trade policies reflect
analysts’ enduring critical or supportive views of Trump’s
broader policies, character, and leadership style. The emotive
response to tariffs is also unusual in that a tariff is simply
another form of a tax applied to goods entering the US
market.
True, unlike many other taxes, tariffs target foreign-made
rather than domestic goods and tend to trigger more serious
diplomatic reactions than a domestic tax would. Even
so, many countries levy tariffs and use other restrictions
against imports into their economies. One might debate the
methodology behind the calculation of so-called reciprocal
tariffs against many US trading partners, but virtually all
US trading partners are undeniably imposing protectionist
measures against American goods. Such measures protect
local firms and industries and should not be understood as a
diplomatic slight or attack against the US. In this sense, some
visceral reactions to Trump’s tariffs seem disproportionate and
even hypocritical.
In an April 2025 interview with the New York Times, former
United States Secretary to the Treasury Larry Summers
argued that Donald Trump’s trade policies are “the most
radical trade policies and probably the most radical, rapid
change in economic policies that the United States has
announced since the Second World War.”
1
Several leaders
and commentators argue that, by leveling tariffs against
virtually every American trading partner, Trump is relinquishing
American global economic leadership, undermining free trade,
winding back globalization, and transforming the US from
being an outward-looking superpower into an inward-looking
and selfish nation.
2
Now that the Court of International Trade has ruled Trump
exceeded his powers under the International Emergency
Economic Powers Act of 1977, the appeals process will
address the legality of many of his tariffs.
3
The decision relates
specifically to the so-called Liberation Day reciprocal tariffs
announced on April 2, tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China
related to fentanyl, and the 10 percent baseline tariffs on many
other countries. The ruling does not affect other tariffs on
steel, aluminum, and automobiles. Regardless of how the legal
appeals process unfolds, one should still consider the logic
