By Mary Coleman
Senior Political Correspondent, Wide World News
February 23, 2026
U.S. tariff policy now sits at a strategic crossroads, where it is less a technocratic trade tool and more a central weapon in a broader political project—one that risks undermining U.S. credibility, global economic rules, and even the separation of powers at home.
From technocratic tariffs to permanent campaign
For decades, U.S. tariffs were framed as temporary instruments to correct specific distortions—dumping, subsidies, or national security risks—within a multilateral framework led by the WTO. Today they function as permanent signalling devices in a never‑ending campaign, used to reward domestic constituencies and punish geopolitical rivals, often with only a tenuous link to trade law or economic logic.
Donald Trump’s second term has pushed this logic to its limit by proposing or imposing across‑the‑board hikes—universal tariffs of 10–20% on all imports and punitive rates of 60% or more on Chinese goods, on top of existing Section 232 and 301 measures. The White House has also floated eye‑catching figures such as “100, 200, 2,000 percent” tariffs on Chinese‑brand cars made in Mexico, turning tariff schedules into political theatre rather than calibrated policy. In parallel, the administration portrays tariff revenue as a kind of magic money tree that can “fund everything,” from social transfers to defense spending, despite experts stressing that this is economically incoherent and historically reminiscent of pre‑income‑tax eras.
Institutional strain: Congress, courts, and presidential power
The new tariff politics sharpen an old constitutional tension: who really controls U.S. trade policy? Formally, the Constitution gives Congress authority over tariffs, but successive statutes have delegated broad discretion to the president in the name of flexibility. Trump’s aggressive interpretation of these delegations—treating them as near‑blank cheques to tax virtually any import in the name of “national emergency”—has triggered pushback not just from foreign partners, but from U.S. courts and lawmakers.
At the Supreme Court, justices from across the ideological spectrum have questioned whether Congress ever intended to grant such sweeping authority, especially for tariffs that look more like general taxation than targeted security measures. In Congress, there are bipartisan murmurs about clawing back powers, as both Democrats and some Republicans balk at open‑ended presidential discretion and the economic damage of blanket tariffs. The political paradox is clear: a populist narrative of “strong” presidential action is eroding the very institutional balance that historically underpinned U.S. trade leadership.
The global rulebook under pressure
Externally, U.S. tariff activism accelerates the erosion of the multilateral trading system it once architected. The United States increasingly acts as if WTO constraints are optional, resorting to unilateral tariff hikes and rebranding structural competition with China as a permanent emergency. Think‑tank analyses note that recent U.S. tariffs on sectors like electric vehicles go far beyond traditional anti‑dumping or anti‑subsidy cases and openly dismiss the idea that WTO rules should be binding when they conflict with strategic competition.
This has two effects. First, it legitimizes similar behaviour by others: China has already weaponised critical minerals and export controls in response, and Europe is gingerly moving from legalistic trade defence toward more nakedly geopolitical instruments. Second, it feeds a contagious protectionism in regional trade agreements, as Washington pressures partners to close “back doors” for Chinese‑linked supply chains, tightening rules of origin and threatening tariffs on products made by Chinese‑owned firms regardless of where they are produced. The message to allies is blunt: align with U.S. geoeconomic priorities—or risk becoming collateral damage.
Allies, rivals, and unintended consequences
Politically, U.S. tariffs are advertised as a clean way to punish strategic rivals like China while safeguarding allies; in practice, the lines blur. The EU and China, two of the main targets of Trump’s tariff agenda, have struggled to form a common front, but both see U.S. measures as self‑serving and destabilising. European institutions, for instance, continue to build painstaking subsidy cases at the WTO while facing enormous political pressure to respond in kind to Washington’s prohibitive tariffs, even when U.S. imports from China in sectors like EVs are minimal.
Meanwhile, Beijing has responded asymmetrically: curbing exports of key inputs, squeezing sectors where the U.S. and its partners are vulnerable, and leveraging its role in critical supply chains rather than merely mirroring U.S. tariff hikes. The risk is that a tariff‑centric strategy, justified in the language of “decoupling” and “resilience,” ends up deepening global fragmentation, encouraging rival blocs to harden their own defensive walls and increasing uncertainty for firms and investors. What is sold domestically as regaining “control” over trade may, from a global perspective, look like managed disorder.
The crossroads: reset, entrenchment, or escalation?
The United States now faces three broad paths, each with heavy political implications. One is reset: Congress could reassert its constitutional role, narrow emergency authorities, and reconnect tariffs to transparent criteria and multilateral disciplines, signalling that U.S. power is compatible with rules. Another is entrenchment: accept tariffs as a quasi‑permanent industrial policy tool, using them to serve domestic redistribution and strategic aims while tolerating higher prices, retaliation, and a weakened WTO.
The most dangerous scenario is escalation by inertia. As long as tariffs remain politically cheap to announce and symbolically powerful, presidents will be tempted to reach for them—over migration, drugs, security, even culture wars—stretching legal justifications to breaking point. In that world, tariffs cease to be the exception and become the grammar of U.S. foreign economic policy, with profound consequences for democratic accountability at home and for the stability of the global trading order.
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