Why the Republican Party Still Backs Trump’s Tariff Wars — Even in 2025

In the spring of 2018, when then-President Donald J. Trump announced sweeping tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum, economists from both parties issued dire warnings. Wall Street analysts braced for retaliation. Republican lawmakers — the ideological heirs of Reagan-era free trade — hesitated, confused. And yet, as the trade war escalated and supply chains buckled, something strange happened: the Republican Party didn’t fracture. It unified.

Seven years later, the world has changed. Inflation has come and gone in waves. China has emerged more defiant than ever. A second Trump presidency, now nearing its first year in 2025, is doubling down on the economic nationalism that once felt like a disruption, but now feels like doctrine. His proposed universal 10% tariff on all imports — casually floated during the 2024 campaign — is no longer a fringe idea. It’s policy-in-waiting.

And despite the potential market chaos, price hikes, and trade retaliation that economists say such a move would trigger, the Republican base still loves it. So does much of the Republican establishment — or at least, it has stopped objecting. Why?

The Tariff Era Didn’t Die. It Became the New Normal.

When Trump left office in January 2021, many believed his tariff-heavy trade policy would be unwound under President Biden. It wasn’t. In fact, Biden left most of the Trump-era tariffs intact, signaling a bipartisan shift toward selective protectionism and supply chain “resilience.”

The Republican Party, once synonymous with globalization and laissez-faire capitalism, had undergone a quiet but powerful metamorphosis. The “America First” economic narrative had burrowed deep into the party’s identity, reframing trade not as a win-win engine of growth, but as a zero-sum contest of national survival.

In this new framework, tariffs aren’t taxes — they’re tools. Tools to punish adversaries. Tools to reward loyalty. Tools to reshape global commerce through American power.

Populism and the Politics of Payback

What’s remarkable in 2025 isn’t just that Trump’s tariff playbook is alive. It’s that it has become a political litmus test in the Republican Party. Criticizing tariffs — once an economic reflex for the GOP — now carries the whiff of elitism, even disloyalty.

The reason? Republican voters, especially in rural and Rust Belt regions, see tariffs as moral instruments. They believe America was taken advantage of: by China, by Mexico, by the WTO, by multinational corporations. And Trump gave them not just someone to blame, but something to fight back with.

Even when prices rose. Even when soybean farmers lost access to Chinese buyers. Even when manufacturing didn’t return in droves. Trump’s rhetoric — and his tariffs — tapped into something visceral: a longing for retribution against a global system many felt had ignored them.

From Ideology to Identity

In the pre-Trump GOP, a universal tariff would have been economic heresy. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Republicans led the charge for NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China. They built the framework for global free markets. But in 2025, few elected Republicans speak that language.

Now, trade policy is culture war by other means.

• Tariffs on Chinese EVs? That’s not just industrial policy — that’s national security.

• Blocking foreign solar panels? That’s not just supply chain risk — that’s defending American workers.

• Raising costs on imported consumer goods? That’s not inflation — that’s investment in independence.

And Trump, even with his baggage, remains the singular figure capable of turning this ideological transformation into party-wide loyalty.

What the Markets Know (and Fear)

Wall Street remains wary. The markets have mostly priced in Trump’s return, but not necessarily the full scope of his tariff proposals. A global 10% tariff would act as a consumption tax, likely feeding another inflationary surge, just as the Fed edges closer to its long-awaited rate cuts.

Multinationals — from auto manufacturers to big box retailers — fear the return of supply chain chaos and rising import costs. Farmers fear retaliation from key buyers like China and the EU. Small businesses, already squeezed by wage growth and financing costs, see another squeeze coming from the cost side.

And yet, among Republican leadership, there’s little appetite to resist.

The Permanent Pivot

What was once a Trump experiment is now a Republican default. Few figures within the party are willing to mount a full-throated defense of globalization. Those who tried — like Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan — are now politically sidelined or retired. The new generation of GOP leaders either embraces economic nationalism or keeps their heads down.

Whether the 10% universal tariff ever becomes law or not, the signal is clear: Trump’s tariff war wasn’t a blip. It was a pivot. And the Republican Party has no intention of pivoting back.

In 2025, the real legacy of Trump’s trade war isn’t economic — it’s ideological. It rewrote what it means to be a Republican on global trade. It taught a party that once worshiped markets to now worship leverage. And it showed that in an era of populism, policy is judged less by its outcomes — and more by who it punishes.

As the next round of tariffs looms, it’s not just foreign companies who should be preparing. It’s the rest of the economy — and the world.