The Oregon senator says the president-elect’s views on trade policy are out of step with those of Trump’s friends on Wall Street.
Ahead of the Christmas holiday — and a second term of Donald Trump further out — Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) warns that this time next year, shoppers could be contending with an extra $4,000 in costs associated with new tariffs imposed by the president-elect.
“In plain English, what Trump wants is a universal tax on all products Oregonians and Americans buy from other countries,” Wyden tells Oregon Business. “And who knows how high the tariff might be. We’re already seeing Oregonians buying toys and electronics looking at the prospect of higher prices.”
Tariffs, or taxes on imports from other countries, are a policy tool used for a variety of purposes in international relations. In his first term as president, Trump relied on them more than any other modern president, and in the run-up to this year’s election, he campaigned on them extensively.
Since Trump’s election to a second term in November, he has called for 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Canada and Mexico until they curb the flow of illegal drugs and illegal immigration. And he discussed ramping up the U.S. trade war with China with further tariffs on all imported Chinese goods, up to 100%.
The US hasn’t implemented tariff increases of the nature in more than 50 years. So, following the November election, Wyden and fellow Democratic senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Chuck Schumer asked the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for estimates of how Trump’s tariff proposals could impact the U.S. economy.
The resulting report, released last week, states Trump’s proposals could potentially improve the nation’s financial position but would lead to inflation and slower economic growth than the country would otherwise experience.
“All the government reports under the sun are not as crucial as the fact that one out of every four jobs in Oregon revolves around trade,” Wyden says. “Trade jobs pay better than do the non-trade jobs and just slapping tariffs randomly and sloppily out of ignorance isn’t a strategy.
It’s a recipe for inflation in Oregon and no government report in my view can undercut that judgment.”
Wyden says tariffs have a role in international trade when they’re targeted, have a defined objective, and help Oregon businesses. In 2017, Wyden supported a tariff on Canadian softwood lumber following investigations into unfair Canadian trade practices. And earlier this year, the senator announced his support for Joe Biden’s tariffs on some Chinese green technology products, to combat what the Biden administration considers unfair trade practices. But Wyden says what Trump has proposed — and what Wyden witnessed during Trump’s first term in office — don’t meet those standards.
On Thursday, Trump posted to social media a threat to raise tariffs on European Union countries if they didn’t buy more U.S. oil.
“His answer to every problem is tariffs,” Wyden says. “If he wakes up some morning and has a cold, he figures, well, a tariff will take care of it,” Wyden says. “I’m kidding, but that is his universal answer to everything. And at a time when many rural families are tiptoeing on an economic tightrope, these Trump tariffs are also a gut punch to American farmers. So this tips the Oregon economy all across the state.”
Wyden represented Oregon in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 until 1996, when he won a special election to assume the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Bob Packwood, who resigned amid sexual harassment and abuse scandals.
Wyden went on to win reelection to the Senate five times; his current term ends in 2029. Along the way he became a fixture on one of the D.C.’s most powerful bodies, the Senate Finance Committee. When Republicans take formal control of the Senate next month, Wyden will move from the committee’s chairman to ranking member.
The Finance Committee vets appointees to the Treasury Department. Wyden has been critical of Trump’s selection for Treasury secretary, hedge fund manager Scott Bessent. Wyden says the president-elect tries to have it both ways with his support for tariffs and policies that support the ultra-rich, many of whom oppose tariffs.
“I want to see how these nominees are going to reconcile the fact that Trump likes tariffs and a lot of his friends on Wall Street do not,” he says.
Each year since taking office, Wyden has held a town hall meeting in every Oregon county. According to his office, as of Friday, he had held 1,101 town halls since he was first elected to the Senate.
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