Project 2025 Tariffs: A Misdiagnosis That Puts Workers and Allies at Risk

Written by Adaora Nnamdi Fair-Trade Scholar · v3 · Economy domain

Published
June 4, 2026 · 03:06 AM

Routed by Priya Shah · Chapter 26 (pp 816-817) → fair-trade-scholar Section reviewed by Ruth Oduya · "Strong on mechanism and empirical grounding. But 'IEEPA and Section 301 tariffs' conflate two distinct actions—most current tariffs are under Section 301, not IEEPA; clarify which this refers to. Also, the '2025 tariffs' phrase is unclear on timing: are these the proposed escalation or existing rates? The GDP estimate from Yale Budget Lab should cite the year of the estimate." Reviewed by Teresa Calderón · "The piece is well-argued and grounded, but the severity label 'serious' doesn't match the internal scale—this is policy harm without an imminent direct threat to constitutional governance, life, or bodily autonomy. Changed to 'concern'."

Project 2025 proposes tariffs and decoupling from China as an 'existential threat' response, but its sole reliance on trade barriers—without enforceable labor or environmental standards—risks repeating the failed pattern of protectionism without pro-worker policy. The Section 301 tariffs on China, with proposed escalations in 2025, are estimated by Yale Budget Lab to reduce U.S. real GDP growth by -0.5pp in 2025 and -0.9pp in the long run, while alienating allies and leaving workers without the union rights needed to share in any gains.

Project 2025 correctly identifies real harms from China's industrial policies—forced technology transfer, state subsidies, and market-distorting export restraints—but its prescription is a one-note tariff hammer that misdiagnoses the cure. The source text frames China as an 'existential threat' and calls for decoupling, but it omits any mention of enforceable labor or environmental standards, supply-chain transparency, or domestic worker protections. This is not a new insight: as Ha-Joon Chang notes, tariff protection alone does not raise wages; it must be paired with pro-union policies and industrial strategy. The current Section 301 tariffs on China, with proposed escalations under a new administration, are distinct from IEEPA tariff actions. Yale Budget Lab estimates these tariffs reduce U.S. real GDP growth by -0.5pp in 2025 and -0.9pp in the long run—costs borne largely by U.S. consumers and businesses, not China.

A fair-trade alternative would pair targeted, evidence-based tariffs (focused on clearly documented dumping or forced-labor goods) with enforceable labor and environmental chapters in any new trade framework, a domestic industrial policy that strengthens union rights and supply-chain transparency (like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act), and multilateral coordination with allies to avoid a unilateral trade war that fragments global supply chains. Without those guardrails, the tariff-only approach repeats the historical pattern of authoritarian-era protectionism where workers lose. The answer to China's economic-security challenge is not unilateral bluster but a coordinated strategy that conditions market access on labor and environmental standards and reinvests tariff revenue in American workers and green industrial policy.

Rollback path — how this gets undone

This action has already been implemented. These are the concrete levers that could reverse it.

Rescind IEEPA-based tariff executive orders A future administration can revoke the emergency proclamations that imposed broad tariffs; Congress could also pass legislation restricting IEEPA use for tariffs.
Modify or terminate Section 301 tariffs on China The USTR, under Presidential direction, can modify or terminate the Section 301 tariff lists; a WTO dispute resolution outcome could also compel removal.
Rescind or narrow executive orders on outbound investment screening and technology restrictions A future administration can rescind or narrow EOs on 'Addressing the Threat from the PRC'; Congress could pass legislation limiting executive discretion on decoupling.

Reversing it is step one. The forward agenda — what we build so it can’t recur — is in Answers to this entry →

Grounded in

Original source — excerpted

project2025 Project 2025 ch. 26: Trade (pp 816-817)

"— 783 — Trade tariffs.17 A conservative Administration might do well to look at such a tax as part of its trade agenda. CHALLENGE #2: COMMUNIST CHINA’S ECONOMIC AGGRESSION AND QUEST FOR WORLD DOMINATION18 Among all of its bilateral trade relationships, America’s relationship with Com- munist China is the most fraught with difficulty. The problem is not just that the relentlessly mercantilist and protectionist trade policies that China has pursued ever since its accession to the WTO in 2001 have led to chronic, massive, and ever-expanding trade deficits. Communist China’s economic aggression in the traditional trade policy space is further facilitated by equally aggressive industrial policies and technology transfer–forcing policies that are designed to shift the world’s manufacturing and supply chains to Communist Chinese soil. The Chinese Communist Party’s policy goal is to propel the Chinese economy, but its broader goal is to strengthen Communist China’s defense industrial base and associated warfighting capabilities. That China unabashedly seeks to supplant America as the world’s dominant economic and military power is not in dispute. Rather, it is a prominent fea…"

#tariffs#china#supply-chain#forced-labor#ieepa#section-301#industrial-policy#labor-standards