When Donald Trump stormed into the White House in 2017, he brought with him highly unorthodox ideas about how the U.S. should trade with the rest of the world. Under his “America First” trading policy, the new president instituted heavy tariffs on things like steel, washing machines, and solar panels — raising prices for imported goods, irritating trading partners around the world, and even sparking a U.S.-China trade war. By 2019, his Treasury Department was bringing in $79 billion from tariffs: double the amount from just two years earlier.
Now, even after President Joe Biden campaigned on a platform of restoring international relationships, the Biden administration might be looking to institute some tariffs of its own — but this time, with the overheating planet in mind. According to an agenda recently released by the U.S. Office of the Trade Representative, the new administration is considering a “carbon border tax” or “border adjustment,” which could hike up the price on imports from countries that, in the view of the U.S., aren’t sufficiently addressing climate change. In Biden’s climate platform, he similarly vowed to impose “... Read more
