Suddenly, the G.O.P. Remembers All Its Doubts on Trump

New York Times ^ | MARCH 7, 2018 | CARL HULSE

[reaganaut1]

WASHINGTON — Over the past week, congressional Republicans have gotten a glimpse of the President Trump they hoped to never see.

On gun safety and, more significantly to many of them, trade, the president has loudly broken with longstanding party orthodoxy and reminded Republican leaders on Capitol Hill that they can never be 100 percent certain of what they are going to get with the onetime New York Democrat.

Despite such worries, Mr. Trump’s first-year actions on policy and personnel — particularly judicial nominees — provided substantial reassurance to congressional Republicans. They concluded that Mr. Trump was really one of them when it came to bedrock issues and that the anti-Washington, drain-the-swamp cries from the raucous campaign rallies were only so many applause lines.

In the chaos of the early weeks of his administration, Mr. Trump provoked a sigh of relief from Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, that the president seemed to actually be conservative. “If you look at the steps that have been taken so far, looks good to me,” Mr. McConnell said.

Now here comes Mr. Trump with his sudden proposal to rebuild the country’s steel and aluminum industries through steep tariffs on imports from leading trading partners. Most congressional Republicans fundamentally disagree with that approach, which they consider a backdoor tax that could easily touch off a calamitous trade war, hurt their local businesses and overwhelm any gains from their hard-won, Republican-only tax bill.

Already facing a harsh political climate heading toward the November midterm elections, Republicans fear that moving ahead with the tariffs could send the party — not to mention the economy — spiraling in the wrong direction.

[Architect of Avalon]

The uniparty orthodoxy is America Last.

[JonPreston]

Pictured is Charles Hulse with fellow Maoists Jayne Ford, Maureen Dowd, and Bernadette Marquez.

[bitterohiogunclinger]

“slap tariffs on goods to benefit a few well-connected large corporations at the expense of millions of small consuming american companies and all of their millions of workers.”

It seems to me that millions of small American companies are generally “producers” and not “consumers”. The Chinese government in particular has subsidized it’s industries and raw materials so heavily for decades that Chinese companies are able to deliver finished products to the U.S. for less than we are paying for the raw materials.

[kiryandil]

#NeverTrump reaganaut1 weighs in...

[trebb]

I just had an epiphany - a number of our very own concern trolls work for the NYSlimes....

[CharlesWayneCT]

So, here’s how that works. China, who ships almost no steel to the United STates, subsidizes steel. SO their steel-consuming companies get cheap steel.

Meanwhile, we put a 25% tariff on steel, driving up the cost of steel to our steel consuming companies, the 25% that comes from Canada, the 25% that comes elsewhere, and even the rest that comes from our local steel companies, who raise their prices (the point of the tariff after all is to allow them to raise prices, supposedly to pay their workers better).

So now, our steel-consuming companies can’t compete with the products from China. Did we slap a tariff on the china products MADE from steel? Nope. So how does this help the american consumer, OR the american worker? Unless you work for a steel company, or own steel company stock.....