A recent Automotive News (2025) editorial looked suspiciously like it was trying to tap its ruby slippers together to make tariffs go away. That may be a comforting fantasy out of The Wizard of Oz. However, it delays the trade journal from coming to terms with the Trump administration’s fixation with high tariffs.
The unsigned editorial expressed hope that the Supreme Court would back up a recent appellate court ruling that declared most of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration this year to be illegal.
“For the sake of the industry and an eventual return to normality,” Automotive News (2025) concluded, “let us all hope that a true end of this expensive, distracting saga arrives quickly.”
Although the editorial gave Automotive News the opportunity to reiterate its opposition to Trump’s dramatic ramping up of tariffs, it tiptoed around some inconvenient truths. For one thing, even if a Supreme Court ruling comes down hard against Trump, that won’t unplug all of the tariffs.
The appellate court only weighed in on tariffs invoked through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (Chisholm, 2025). However, tariffs established through other means would stand. In addition, the Trump administration could impose new tariffs through other legal means.
“He wouldn’t be able to replicate the broad across-the-board nature of the tariffs that he’s imposed,” Dartmouth College economics professor Doug Irwin told NPR (Kurtzleben, 2025). “But he would be able to hit a lot of different countries and hit a lot of industries with tariffs using different parts of the tariff code.”
Failing to acknowledge the only way to rein in tariffs
By what logic does Automotive News think that Trump is going to give up on his tariff-centric economic policies even if the Supreme Court rejects his use of the IEEPA? Reaching way back to the 2024 electoral campaign, Trump has been consistent in arguing for a return of high trade barriers the U.S. has not seen since prior to World War II.
By the same token, the Republican-controlled Congress has not shown signs of taking back its authority to control tariff policies. For example, this week House Republicans passed a measure that would “effectively prevent members from challenging Trump’s unpopular global tariff regime, suspending until March 31, 2026 a section of the law that dictates how Congress can terminate a president’s declaration of a national emergency” (Jones, 2025).
Also see ‘Why are auto industry and media so surprised by Trump’s tariffs?’
What this adds up to is that the only way to fully rein in Trump would be for the Democrats to take over both the House and the Senate in the 2026 mid-term elections. Alas, Automotive News — like the auto industry as a whole — has historically tilted Republican in its political sensibilities. So it would take a meaningful pivot for the trade journal to support anti-tariff Democratic candidates.
How much dislocation will the U.S. auto industry have to endure before Automotive News acknowledges that there is only one way out of this mess?
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RE:SOURCES
- Automotive News; 2025. “In our opinion: Rule of law trumps disastrous trade policy for now.” Posted Sept. 3.
- Chisholm, Johanna; 2025. “What happens next after Trump tariffs ruled illegal?” BBC. Posted Aug. 30.
- Jones, Layla A.; 2025. “Republicans Could Stop Trump’s Tariffs, But Keep Voting to Make Themselves Powerless.” Talking Points Memo. Posted Sept. 18.
- Kurtzleben, Danielle; 2025. “Supreme Court will weigh in on Trump’s tariffs. Here’s what to know about the case.” NPR. Posted Sept. 9.
PHOTOGRAPHY & GRAPHICS:
- Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives; 2021. “L’Installation du Nouveau President de la Republique Des Etats-Unis.” Illustration by E. A Tilly.
High time we address trade inequities – we all know are there. But we sweep them under the rug when sales/times are good. Some muscle is better then none
One can be in favor of better dealing with trade imbalances and disagree with the current approach, which is to bring back from the dead the merchantilist tariff policies of William McKinley. We don’t live in a 19th Century economy anymore where the U.S. is still building its industrial capacity. I particularly don’t see the value of destroying the close relationship the U.S. and Canadian auto industries have developed over many decades.
Put another way, imposing the highest tariffs that the U.S. has had since early in the Great Depression is the trade-policy equivalent of trying to drive a Model T Ford on today’s freeway — it’s not going to get you where you want to go very safely.