The US president wields tariffs not as a policy tool but as an instrument of pressure, rewarding loyalty and punishing defiance \u2013 even among allies<\/p>\n
Donald Trump has probably not read much Michel\u00a0Foucault. But he appears to embody the French philosopher\u2019s claim that \u201cpolitics is the continuation of war by other means<\/a>\u201d. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his fondness for tariffs. He presents taxing foreign imports as a way to rebuild<\/a> the American economy in favour of blue-collar workers left behind by free trade and globalisation. Yet he plainly thinks that politics is not about truth or justice. It is about leverage and supremacy.<\/p>\n Britain is learning first-hand that Mr Trump, with his us-versus-them framing and taste for spectacle, is an accidental Foucauldian<\/a> \u2013 using tariffs as tools of loyalty\u00a0and dominance, even against allies. If Mr\u00a0Trump follows through on his threat to impose a 20% tariff <\/a>on all imports, UK growth will suffer. The effect depends on the response. No British retaliation would mean GDP 0.4% lower<\/a> this year and 0.6% next. A global trade war would push that to 0.6% and 1%. Either outcome would wipe out the government\u2019s fiscal headroom. But while British policymakers fret over the shrinking margins<\/a> of fiscal rules, Mr Trump sees no need to cloak power in objectivity.<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The US president wields tariffs not as a policy tool but as an instrument of pressure, rewarding loyalty and punishing defiance \u2013 even among allies Donald Trump has probably not read much Michel\u00a0Foucault. But he appears to embody the French philosopher\u2019s claim that \u201cpolitics is the continuation of war by other means\u201d. Nowhere is this … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}