President Donald Trump and one of his nominal adversaries have suddenly called to mind two of America’s great early statesmen.
In my imagination — excessively fertile, perhaps — Trump plays the role of Founding Father James Madison, while Trump’s nominal adversary, Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, has channeled the worthy spirit of a fellow New Englander, John Quincy Adams, son of the great Founding Father John Adams.
According to Axios, Golden has taken the very Quincy Adams-like approach of bucking his own party and voicing support for Trump’s controversial-yet-brilliant tariff policy.
Remember, Trump has adopted tariffs in order to bring America’s working class relief from globalist exploitation disguised as free trade.
To his credit, Golden has recognized as much.
Moreover, as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York prepares to rally Democrats in opposition to Trump’s tariffs, Golden has also recognized his own party’s rank hypocrisy.
“When they’re searching under every couch cushion for ways to re-appeal the party to working class, coming out against this so strongly” is a terrible strategy, Golden said in an interview with Axios.
“I remember Dems being outraged by the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, all these trade deals, even as recently as TPP,” Golden continued.
Should Trump stick to his guns on tariffs?
“Now all of a sudden it’s like a complete 180 degree flip here where we’re staunchly defending the importance and relevance of the stock market to the American economy and defending free trade deals,” the congressman added.
Investors, of course, love predictability, which explains why the stock market has shed much of its paper value of late.
Trump, however, has not implemented tariffs to further enrich investors. The president has a much larger purpose in mind, including protecting Americans from deadly drugs like fentanyl.
On these subjects, Golden spoke like a true MAGA patriot.
“The vast majority of Americans have no stocks,” the congressman said, dismissing jittery investors’ concerns.
Moreover, Golden hoped that the president would stick to his guns.
“My biggest worry is that they’re going to do this and lose faith and political will and back away,” the congressman said.
So why did Golden’s support for Trump’s tariffs lead to thoughts of Madison and Quincy Adams?
Well, for one thing, Trump has used tariffs at least in part as the Founders intended. When not implemented solely for revenue purposes, tariffs amount to instruments of economic coercion. If deployed properly, they can alter the behavior of foreign governments.
In 20 years of research and teaching, I found nothing as central to Madison’s statecraft as economic coercion. Along with his friend and ally Thomas Jefferson, Madison framed economic coercion as a permanent alternative to war.
The most extreme example of this occurred during Jefferson’s presidency, when Madison served as secretary of State. In 1807, at Madison’s urging, the Jefferson administration adopted a full-scale embargo on all international trade. They had a twofold objective: protect American sailors from British impressment and protect American ships from depredations by warring British and French forces on the high seas. They achieved their objectives at the cost of collapsing parts of the American economy.
The British-aligned Federalists, playing the part of modern Democrats, hoped to capitalize on the short-term economic distress the embargo caused.
In a lengthy and brilliant 1808 letter to Massachusetts state Sen. Harrison Gray Otis, however, Quincy Adams excoriated his fellow Federalists for failing to support the administration’s embargo, which, as Quincy Adams noted, protected some of the least fortunate and most vulnerable Americans from injustice while bringing mild and temporary inconvenience to the trading interests.
Tariffs, of course, fall well short of full-scale embargo. But the principle of economic coercion remains the same.
Thus, one must give credit where due. By supporting Trump’s tariffs, Golden played the role of the venerable Quincy Adams to Trump’s Madison.
On the other hand, the Maine congressman might as likely have backed the tariffs for a simpler reason. In short, he knows they will work.
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