Washington Wednesday: Trump’s tariffs and Supreme Court showdown

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 4th of December.

You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Time now for Washington Wednesday.

Today, a preview of the landmark case at the Supreme Court on how far states can go to protect gender-confused children.

EICHER: But first, President-elect Trump and his tough talk on tariffs.

Here’s Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno.

LEO BRICENO: It’s no secret that President-elect Donald Trump really likes tariffs.

TRUMP: The word ‘tariff’ is the most beautiful word in the dictionary. More beautiful than love…

Throughout his campaign, Trump pitched tariffs as a key instrument to protecting American industries from competition abroad, as a way to bring companies inside U.S. borders, and as a way to spur economic growth.

TRUMP: …The most beautiful word in the dictionary, remember that. It’s gonna make our country rich…

The idea behind them is simple: by raising the tax cost for certain imports entering the U.S., it favors domestic markets and products.

And, politically, that messaging has paid off. So much so that whether or not they actually deliver those ends is beside the point.

YORK: You know, just given the political success of tariffs he imposed in his first term… There were some studies that found that even in counties and districts where tariffs led to net losses in jobs they led to political benefits for Trump and Republicans in the next election cycle.

Erica York is a senior economist and research director with the Tax Foundation. She says that tariffs always create disruption as the markets they affect look for ways to get around steeper costs.

YORK: The most tariffs can do is kind of reallocate activity. It can reallocate some investment and some workers to protected sectors, but that's coming from someplace else.

Sometimes that encourages domestic growth. But it almost always means prices go higher for someone, and not just for those paying the tax. York points to Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum in his first administration.

YORK: So we produced more steel and aluminum in the United States, and we got to sell it at a higher price, so profits in those industries grew. But that means those in downstream industries had to pay higher input costs. So, think construction, auto-manufactures, they all had to pay higher input costs.

This time around, York says Trump is doubling down on his use of tariffs, and it’s evident in his cabinet choices.

KEVIN HASSETT: I reject the idea that it’s going to be anything like a sales tax…

Kevin Hassett is Trump’s choice to head the National Economic Council. He previously served as White House economic advisor during Trump’s first term. Back in September, Hassett told PBS that China’s response to U.S. tariffs will likely depend on who else is competing in the market.

HASSETT: Suppose there’s a product we only buy from the Chinese. Then if we put a tariff on it, then they’ll pass it through in terms of a higher price to us. And if there’s a product we can buy from other people, and we put a tariff on the Chinese then they won’t.

York believes that another part of Trump’s tariff game is to play for the reactions they elicit. By forcing countries to the negotiating table with threats of tariffs, he might be able to accomplish other priorities as well, like border security or drug enforcement. It seems to be working. On Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

TRUDEAU: It was an excellent conversation.

Trudeau and Claudia Sheinbaum, the President of Mexico, have already started engaging with Trump on what the tariffs mean for their relationship with the U.S.

They’ve also forced political conversations inside those countries too. In Canada, opposition leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on Trudeau to pull back on raising the carbon tax on fuel.

PIERRE POILIEVRE: Combining this kind of crippling kind of tax increase with potential tariffs from Donald Trump would push our economy into a nightmare and a tailspin.

But inside the U.S., it’s not yet clear how serious the threat of tariffs is, or how Trump will implement them.

While the president has some power to impose tariffs on his own, it’s not an absolute power. He’s going to need Congress to pass legislation. But with razor-thin majorities, free-market Republicans may push back on Trump’s tariff proposals. What if Trump asks them to tie tariffs to another high priority? Like renewing the tax cuts from 2017?

Here’s York again.

YORK: It’s going to be a big point of tension, especially if there’s a push to try to include these tariffs in legislation… So, I see it as a big risk to the agenda that congress has in dealing with the Tax expirations.

But that’s a question for January.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno.

MAST: Now, from tariffs to transgender procedures for minors. Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case United States versus Skrmetti.

EICHER: Jonathan Skrmetti is attorney general of Tennessee. That state passed a law back in 2023 putting restrictions on cross-sex hormones and body-altering procedures for minors. The American Civil Liberties Union and some families in Tennessee sued, saying the law violates their rights, and today the case is before the Supreme Court.

MAST: There’s a lot to cover here so tomorrow, you’ll hear from families and individuals harmed by those procedures, then we’ll cover the legal arguments on Monday.

But today, an overview of what’s at stake in the case.

Here’s Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Diane Clements of Sacramento, California, has been sitting in front of the Supreme Court since 11 am Tuesday morning waiting for today’s oral arguments.

DIANE CLEMENTS: Im not good with cold, but I've got lots of layers and I've got my hand warmers and my electric socks and so I'm doing good. So I'm doing okay.

Public seating for oral arguments is first come, first served, and for big cases, coming early means days in advance. About 20 people were holding spots along the sidewalk as of last night, including an attorney self-identified as Russell Rode.

RODE: I am transgender and a lawyer and interested in writing about transgender issues in the law and this is a case that's going to decide potentially whether transgender people are protected under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Other court-watchers see this as a case pitting parental rights against the state’s power to regulate. Here’s WORLD Opinions Contributor and attorney Daniel Suhr.

SUHR: And so we're actually in this very unique posture in this case where conservatives who are usually championing parents' rights in other settings like a public school are in this instance skeptical of the parent's rights claims and instead insisting on the power of the legislature to regulate. And conversely, we have liberals who often are trying to put parents' rights in the context of broader social rights or broader community responsibilities for children are here insisting on the priority of the parents and their right to direct their child's medical care, including the right to have a transgender surgery on their child.

The case is about the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses in the Constitution. But experts expect the parental rights issue to come up quickly during oral arguments. With a conservative majority of six justices, it is likely they will side with Tennessee on ideological grounds. Determining whose right trumps the other could be less clear.

FOWLER: At a fundamental level, it's what does it mean to be human because until we know what it means to be human we don't really even know what health care is.

David Fowler is the president of the Alliance for Law and Liberty, based in Tennessee. He said the law was originally passed after the state found out that Vanderbilt Hospital, in Nashville made significant profits performing hormone treatments and reproductive organ-altering surgeries on children. But the plaintiffs argue that stopping these procedures discriminates against people who do not identify with their biological sex. Here’s Fowler again.

FOWLER: Really, what we're talking about here is redefining human beings into the category of cisgendered and transgendered. We're no longer just human beings but our humanity is is understood subjectively as to how we relate to our bodies.

Tennessee and the families are not the only litigants before the Court today. The Department of Justice is also arguing the case against the Tennessee law. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar has said the outcome is of particular interest to the Biden administration. But that administration only has a month left in office. Here’s Daniel Suhr again:

SUHR: Were it argued three months from now, I don't know that the United States Department of Justice would take the same position. It is unusual, for the department to take such an aggressive role in bringing a case directly against the state law, which I think just shows you then political influence of the transgender activist lobby within the Biden administration to get them to take this unusually aggressive stand against the state law.

On the other side, dozens of organizations ranging from the Family Research Council to the governor of Texas filed friend of the court briefs in support of Tennessee’s law. That includes the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. ERLC President Brent Leatherwood says the case before the justices is clear-cut.

LEATHERWOOD: It's really a straightforward instance of the government, the state government in this instance, stepping in for a vulnerable population and saying this is an inappropriate medical intervention here.

When a similar New Hampshire law takes effect on January 1st, 26 states will have a law on the books that prohibits both hormonal treatments and surgical procedures for gender confused minors. If the Supreme Court rules against Tennessee, the new precedent could have a domino effect across the country. Here’s Leatherwood again:

LEATHERWOOD: It potentially opens up a Pandora's box on nearly any law that mentions biological realities of sex of male and female. So this case based on how it is decided, it could have very far reaching effects.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta in Washington.

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