At a rally in North Carolina last month, former President Trump presented a new strategy for world peace: imposing huge tariffs on countries that start wars.
“We don't have to send in troops, we can do it with a phone call,” he said. “If we go to war with a country that's friendly or not friendly to us, you can't do business in the United States, you're subject to 100 percent tariffs.”
“And all of a sudden a president or a prime minister or a dictator or somebody running a country says to me, 'Of course, we're not going to war,'” Trump continued.
Trump has made similar remarks several times in his election speeches, repeatedly accusing President Biden, and more recently Vice President Harris, of bringing the world to the brink of World War III and promising to restore peace and world order if elected.
But pressuring countries with tariffs on imports is unlikely to be effective, experts say.
Especially since the US does not trade with most of its adversaries other than China.
And historically, tariffs have been a headwind for the U.S. economy: experts point to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, when the U.S. government imposed tariffs to protect American industry during the Great Depression, but other countries responded in kind, with devastating economic effects on the U.S.
George Lopez, professor emeritus of peace studies at the University of Notre Dame and a leading expert on economic sanctions, said tariffs are even less effective than sanctions, a more widely used foreign policy tool that bans trade with companies or individuals in a targeted country.
“Even China has put down the phone of the US president. [his] “We are our closest ally,” he said of the tariff policy. “Nobody in this room takes that seriously.”
Lopez added that the costs of a major tariff campaign as a foreign policy tool are a concern.
“This is really Economics 101. [Trump sees this] “Announcement of bold economic policies as a top priority should send shivers down Wall Street and beyond,” he said.
Caroline Leavitt, a national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said tariffs on China and sanctions on Iran were the reason “economic prosperity and peace around the world” occurred during Trump's time in the White House.
“Kamala Harris' weakness and failures have emboldened our enemies and brought us to the brink of World War III,” she said in a statement. “No one believes for a moment that Kamala Harris has the power to stand up to them and repair the economy she destroyed.”
“When President Trump returns to the White House, he will stand up to our enemies, negotiate better trade deals, restore peace in the world, and make America strong again,” she added.
The U.S. Constitution gives taxing power to Congress, but over the years the Legislature has given the President broad powers to impose tariffs.
Trump has pledged to impose a 60% tariff on Chinese products if he takes office in January. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have imposed heavy tariffs on China on products including electric vehicles, semiconductor chips, semiconductors, and steel and aluminum products.
William Reinsch, the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the threat of additional tariffs is unlikely to deter China from invading the self-governing island nation of Taiwan or escalating its dispute with the Philippines in the South China Sea.
“The only U.S. threat that will bring about change is a military threat,” he said.
Tariffs would force countries to either accept the costs or look for other markets, but Reinsch said the U.S. may have some leverage over smaller countries that are highly dependent on the U.S. economy — such as Serbia, which has threatened Kosovo in recent years — but tariffs would likely have limited impact on their decision-making.
“When you start talking about geopolitical and military issues, it's not easy for other countries to use economic weapons if they believe their fundamental territorial integrity is at risk,” he said.
A massive tariff campaign against China, the world's second-largest economy, would almost certainly hurt American consumers and the U.S. economy, as higher taxes would force Americans to pay higher prices for imported goods.
Kristen Patel, professor of policy studies and practice at Syracuse University, said the “risks and costs outweigh the benefits” of tariff policy.
“The burden on the private sector is substantial,” she said, and “former President Trump has not consistently explained how the tariffs benefit us, our businesses, our consumers.”
“This is a case of economic masculinity: 'I'll punish them with tariffs and they'll do what I want,'” she added. “It's not clear how tariffs will actually change the behavior of China or other countries.”
President Trump has touted tariffs as a solution to a host of problems at home and abroad, including the U.S. child care affordability crisis, other countries moving away from the U.S. dollar, and foreign ill will in general.
“There's China, there's Russia, there's Kim Jong Un. There are many different countries around the world.” “We're not going to let the world down,” he said at a rally in Atlanta in March.“But they're not the real problem. A competent president can deal with them. He can say, 'Really? Are you going to do that? We're going to put crazy tariffs on you. Here's what we're going to do.'”
Daniel McDowell, a professor of international affairs at Syracuse University who studies the global economy, said Trump mistakenly believes tariffs are a “cure-all foreign policy tool that can be used for any problem.”
“The idea of using tariffs to deter aggression in other countries is pretty far-fetched,” he said.
McDowell added that President Trump's top tariff policies could upend international markets and drive up commodity prices if the U.S. has to buy from other countries. China will be hit the hardest, he said.
“The tariffs already on China are high, but if they're at 100 percent, they'll be even higher given the volume of trade we have with China,” he said. “Those tariffs will be passed on to consumers.”
During his first term, President Trump imposed tariffs on China, waged a trade war with Europe and other countries, and increased Americans' taxes by $80 billion. According to the Tax Foundation.
President Trump also implemented tough sanctions to punish adversaries during his first term, but has offered conflicting views on how he would enforce them if he wins in November.
Speaking at the Economic Club of New York last Thursday, President Trump said that frequent sanctions would erode the value of the dollar, and that “we will impose and lift sanctions as quickly as we can.”
But he added that “we will continue to use very strong sanctions against countries that deserve them.”
Benjamin Coates, an associate professor at Wake Forest University who has studied the history of U.S. sanctions, said his analysis of Trump's proposal suggests he wants to propose a combination of tariffs and sanctions to deter adversaries.
But he warned in an email that “there are few examples in history where greater economic pressure has succeeded in persuading a targeted country to dramatically shift its foreign or domestic policies, and in many cases the economic pressure has only made the problem worse.”
Sanctions, which have proliferated as a foreign policy tool over the past two decades, have had a shaky history and have mostly failed for a variety of reasons, including as adversaries have found ways to circumvent their effects, as Russia has done.
Reinsch, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Trump believes “access to the U.S. market means a lot to other countries” and that he can use that as a bargaining chip.
“That's the perspective he's coming from, and I don't think anyone can dissuade him,” he said, but added: “The cliché about sanctions is that they're only effective until you pull the trigger.”
