Trump trade strategy: Big sticks, big bets

Sir Isaac Newton — he of “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” fame — was a polymath who excelled in math, physics, astronomy, alchemy and theology.

And now, if you squint, economics because as his Third Law of Motion suggests, when you push markets one way with tariffs — as the Trump White House did — you should expect an equal and opposite reaction from those same markets.

Take Colombia, the first target of President Donald Trump’s tariffication policy. On Jan. 27, the White House imposed 25% tariffs on Colombian imports when it resisted the use of U.S. military flights, rather than four- to eight-times cheaper commercial flights, to repatriate undocumented Colombians.

Most American farm leaders gulped at the news for the little known reason that Colombia is “the largest South American market for U.S. agricultural products,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “and the seventh-largest market for U.S. food and beverage exports globally.”

That tariff tempest blew over in 24 hours, but the knee-buckling use of U.S. power over costly, showy military flights is not likely to be forgotten by Colombian food buyers.

They don’t need to buy American, especially if U.S. leadership makes a point to embarrass them in their own commodity-rich backyard.

American farm leaders blanched again when the White House threatened to unilaterally hit our long-at-peace neighbors and best U.S. ag customers, Mexico and Canada, with similar 25% import tariffs a week later.

Both nations immediately imposed reciprocal tariffs, but then quickly announced settlements that included little new for anyone, according to several news services.

Other than, of course, handing the White House what it touted as a trade win when, in fact, explained the Feb. 4 New York Times, “ambiguity … seems to be as much a part of (Trump’s) strategy as the threat of tariffs themselves.”

So, no one gained much of anything in this week-long game of international chicken even though the White House insists that its big-stick trade policy won the day because Colombia, Mexico and Canada didn’t want to pay U.S. tariffs.

Which is perfect nonsense because exporters don’t pay tariffs, importers do.

This up-is-down misrepresentation matters because it involves U.S. ag’s three biggest farm and food importers: No. 1, Mexico that will buy $30 billion in U.S. ag goods in 2025; No. 2, Canada, that will buy $29.2 billion; and No. 3, China, that will buy $23.3 billion of U.S. farm goods and now is also under tariff threat by the White House.

Collectively, the three account for 48% of all forecasted 2025 U.S. farm sales abroad.

The last time the Trump White House played this wrong-headed tariff game, American farmers lost markets in China and the White House paid out $23 billion in special federal payments to — principally — corn, soybean and cotton growers because of those lost markets.

American taxpayers paid that $23 billion tab, not China, and certainly not any Chinese tariffs.

Will Congress, now searching U.S. Capitol couch cushions for nickels and dimes to fund the estimated $5 trillion extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, pony up billions more to clean up a wrongheaded, second Trump ag tariff war?

Probably, but you wouldn’t know it from the silence that’s descended over Washington. No one in GOP ag leadership denounced the Trump tariffs last week and a few — unbelievably — actually endorsed them.

That’s just crazy and you know it and so does every GOP member of the ag committees.

Pushback — payback — is coming and that actual cost will fall on every American taxpayer, farmers and ranchers included.