In an interview with the CBS News’s 60 Minutes, host Scott Pelley described former Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, who served as the United States Trade Representative during President Donald Trump’s first administration, as an “evangelist for tariffs.” Lighthizer was the architect of  Trump’s trade policy. Prior to serving in the Trump administration, Lighthizer was a longtime critic of the “free trade and globalization” consensus that dominated both political parties. Lighthizer is not serving in the second Trump administration, but his influence is clear, and he’s been instrumental in making the case to Republicans and beyond that tariffs are not only needed, but an integral part of a larger economic policy. As the GOP debates the merits of a different trade regime, it’s worth revisiting Lighthizer’s wisdom on tariffs and remembering that implementing them represents a return to a more traditional conservative economic policy. 

Lighthizer has long been among the only voices crying out in the wilderness, warning about the dangers of trade agreements such as NAFTA, WTO, and the folly of granting Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to China. And he has fought to remind conservatives of their true heritage when it came to trade policy. 

Republicans, the party of Alexander Hamilton, the Federalists, Henry Clay, and the Whigs, embraced the American System of political economy, which included the protective tariff. It was a pillar of the party’s trade policy from Abraham Lincoln through Herbert Hoover. Republicans argued that the policy of protection was not only needed to benefit the economy but also to keep wages high and protect American sovereignty. 

In the aftermath of World War II, the Republican Party and the conservative movement started to drift more toward free trade, as the conservative movement became dominated by individuals and ideas that embraced “classical liberalism” and free markets. Hamilton—once admired by Republicans and conservatives—came to be seen as a progressive forerunner. 

In both his campaigns for the White House, President Trump emphasized America First and economic nationalism as large parts of his policy agenda. Because of his popularity and the force of the “Make America Great Again” movement, Trump was able to not only elevate different ideas on trade but also shift the direction of the Republican Party. 

He quickly adopted tariffs to protect the steel and aluminum industries and levied them against China. The president’s support of tariffs, which he described as one of the most “beautiful words,” still makes many Republicans uncomfortable, angering many within the conservative movement. 

Only a few weeks into the start of his second term, Trump threatened to levy a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada for not doing more to prevent illegal immigration and to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States. In addition, the president imposed another 10% tariff on imports from China. A 25% tariff on steel and aluminum was recently announced, with more potential actions under consideration.

Trump is right that tariffs are needed to correct the enormous trade imbalances symbolized by the trade deficit. The United States is currently running a $1.2 trillion trade deficit, including close to a $40 billion trade deficit in agriculture in particular. 

For why, and what to do about it, it’s once again valuable to listen to Lighthizer: “For the first time in our history, we imported more food than we exported,” he recently noted. This has had broader consequences for the U.S.: “We’ve lost electronics. We’ve lost textiles. We’ve lost chemicals in a large way. We invented the semiconductor. Now we make 8% of semiconductors for the world. And none of the really high-tech ones. More than half of the cars sold in America are now imports.”

In the age of free trade, the United States has become dependent upon foreign nations and entire sectors have been waylaid by this devotion to free trade absolutism. The steel industry is still struggling to recover from decades of foreign steel flooding the market. The loss of manufacturing—at least 6 million jobs since 2000—has not only impacted the economy but also communities and families, all as a result of trade agreements. 

No one has suffered the consequences worse than American workers. Once again, Lighthizer has provided the best explanation: “But our workers are the real victims of these policies. They have seen millions of their good paying jobs disappear, their real wages have mostly stagnated for more than two decades and many of their communities have been decimated,” he wrote in the same piece mentioned above. This directly undermines the American Dream and is one reason many Americans, regardless of political identification, support President Trump and his effort to rethink our trade policy. 

Part of what needs fixing is our trade deficit: the difference between what we import from other countries and what we export. That deficit is enormous and growing, and, as none other than the former USTR himself has explained, it is a massive wealth transfer away from the United States, bringing both economic and national security concerns.:

You add it all up, you can get to around $1 trillion a year of wealth from the United States being transferred to a geopolitical adversary. It’s insane. And it’s working. And then you ask yourself as a national security issue, how do you fight a war if, God help us, we ever have a war with China when they’re now four times more likely to be able to– produce what is needed in a war.

Trump’s support for tariffs has kicked off a debate within his administration. Even some of the more traditional “free market” conservatives agree that tariffs, used as a tool for leverage in negotiating, are acceptable for dealing with China, but perhaps not for a broader economic policy. 

So how should Trump approach a new era of trade policy? Tariffs as strictly a negotiating tool may achieve some successes, but the problem of unfair trade practices and the trade deficit remains. The real value is in resetting America’s approach to trade as part of a larger economic policy reorientation tied to tariffs. 

This type of approach from a Republican wasn’t always controversial; from presidents Lincoln through Hoover, the protective tariff was a pillar of Republican economic policy. 

Where conservative history is concerned, President Trump should consider Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge as how-to guides for structuring an economic policy that utilizes tariffs. While critics will surely connect Harding to the Great Depression, doing so sidesteps the truth of the matter. Consider the parallels.

Harding was confronted with severe economic depression in the aftermath of the Great War. In addition, the nation suffered from high tax rates and a large national debt. He wanted to not only restore the economy, but also lower tax rates, reduce spending, and start addressing the debt. Trump and America today confront similar circumstances.

To help meet these goals, Harding also called for a protective tariff. Congress responded by passing an emergency tariff and later the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, which raised tariff rates as part of an overall economic policy that Harding and later Coolidge utilized. 

Harding understood that the policy of protection would not only benefit the economy but also provide needed revenue. The revenue from the tariff would then help lower tax rates and pay down debt. Representative Frank Crowther (R-NY) stated that the “Fordney-McCumber bill has been a tremendous revenue producer and a material factor in reduction of taxes.”

During the 1920s, Harding and Coolidge were able to use these policies not only to reduce income tax rates but also to lower government spending and pay down debt, leading to a period of economic expansion. The economy grew at a rate of 4 percent, unemployment remained low, and the United States produced over 40 percent of the world’s manufactured goods. This included producing half of the world’s steel, and it was this manufacturing base that would transform the nation into the “Arsenal of Democracy” during World War II.

The Harding and Coolidge economic policy necessarily went beyond just tariffs, as Trump’s economic changes must as well: consisting of a combination of levers, including tax reform, limiting spending, debt reduction, protective tariffs, and restricting immigration. Coolidge would even credit both the protective tariff and restricting immigration (another policy tied to a better approach to economic policy) for helping with the economic success and protecting the wages of workers.

The Harding and Coolidge administrations are often held in high regard by most conservatives for the tax cuts and spending reductions, but even though these were important policies, the protective tariff was just as important. Trump should adopt this same wisdom to confront similar challenges in America today. 

Doing so could help not only bring in revenue but also help achieve the president’s other economic objectives of strengthening manufacturing and improving middle-class jobs. In this way, tariffs represent not merely a policy tool but part of a shift in how the U.S. thinks about trade.

President Trump has already announced that he will use tariffs to support the steel and aluminum industries, and he’s placed an additional 10% tariff on imports from China. Most likely the Trump administration is considering other tariff policies such as a 10 or 20% universal tariff and even higher tariffs on China. Any future policy should help rebalance trade by reducing the trade deficit, bring in additional revenue to reduce taxes and pay down debt, and protect the economy and workers from predatory trade practices. 

This wisdom is captured well by—you guessed it—Ambassador Lighthizer: “Remember, the tariffs are part of an economic policy. The policy has tax cuts. It has … spending cuts. It has energy production. It has regulatory reduction. And it has tariffs.” 

While his thinking has no doubt gained ground in the Republican Party, not everyone is so keen to accept it. At the very end of the 60 Minutes interview Pelley asks, “what are the chances that you’re wrong?” Lighthizer responds, “once again, we tried it the other way, Scott. If we do this, in 10 years it doesn’t work, we can go back and always fail again the way we have in the past.” Until and unless that happens, Trump can take inspiration from the Republican Party’s heritage, which long embraced the policy of protection as a pillar of economic policy. And he can continue to trust the wisdom of Ambassador Lighthizer. Tariffs are a part of doing both: an important policy tool that should be used to help implement the America First future of Trump’s second term.