Why won’t Trump obey the law and hand over the document? Beyond all that, why does Trump even want to impose tariffs on European cars? Part of the answer may be that the self-proclaimed Tariff Man still believes that protectionism will revive American manufacturing, even though the evidence says that his trade war had the opposite effect. Beyond that, it appears that Trump tried to use the threat of auto tariffs to bludgeon European nations into backing him up in his confrontation with Iran. Trump’s scofflaw behavior with regard to auto tariffs is part of a broader pattern of abuse of power and contempt for the rule of law.

Source: New York Times January 23, 2020 20:48 UTC