Donald Trump announced Friday that he would wait six months before raising tariffs on auto and car part imports from U.S. allies such as Europe and Japan.
Who knows why Trump did something that could be considered remotely reasonable. The main issue appears to be that talks with America’s trade partners haven't been going very well under the threat of tariffs. The New York Times reports that the Trump administration has "struggled" to make progress on new trade deals with normally friendly trading partners like the European Union and Japan.
Trump has already implemented tariffs on steel and aluminum, but adding autos and car parts to the list of tariffs would have been viewed as an extremely aggressive move. Countries that export auto-related products to the U.S. had been "bracing" for the worst.
Trump's aides may have talked him down from taking action at this particular moment, while trade talks with China are in free fall following Trump's escalation of tensions with the economic behemoth. Some sectors of the U.S. economy are already reeling from that trade war, and imposing a new round of tariffs now on other countries likely would have been both a political and a strategic disaster for the administration. They're too busy trying to handle the China fallout.
At the risk of being a tad too simplistic, it's probably fair to say that all of the Trump administration's trade efforts are floundering right now. The U.S. is effectively in an all-out trade war with China. Trump can't seem to get our European and other Asian trading partners to the table. And the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) intended to replace NAFTA is undergoing some tough sledding in Congress, where both Democrats and Republicans have issues with the agreement.
At the very least, it’s probably fair to say that Trump's real estate negotiating tactics aren't translating well to the national stage.