On Wednesday evening, Trump instructed the Commerce Department to investigate whether to raise tariffs to up to 25 percent on auto imports. The official rationale for launching this probe wasn’t that foreign countries were “dumping” their products at unfairly low prices, stealing our intellectual property or otherwise engaging in the sort of foul play that administrations past have alleged when threatening tariffs.
No, in this case, Trump has instructed Commerce to probe whether imports of automobiles and auto parts “threaten to impair the national security.”
Yes, you read that right. Late-’70s British pop stars may feel safest of all in their cars, but apparently Americans today should not.
If this all seems a bit far-fetched, well, that’s because it is.
Trump also cited national security when he announced his steel and aluminum tariffs in March (“If you don’t have steel, you don’t have a country!”). The logic was shaky then; it’s maxing out the Richter scale now.
