March 5, 2018

Trump Might Provide Tariff Exemptions for Favored CEOs

Here’s the latest on President Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum:

Peter Navarro, an adviser and the architect of many of Mr. Trump’s campaign trade promises, confirmed on Sunday that the president would not exclude any country from the tariffs but said individual companies could apply for exemptions for certain products.

This is Donald Trump’s dream: having corporate CEOs come to him on their knees, begging for tariff exemptions. And this has other benefits: every CEO in America will say nice things about him because they don’t want to ruin their chances of getting an exemption. And who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump aides whispered in their ears that maybe they could do a little more than just say nice things.

This is an open door for corruption, which I suppose is why Trump likes it. Nobody else should, though.

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Democracy and journalism are in crisis mode—and have been for a while. So how about doing something different?

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