How Mar-a-Lago Memberships Explain Trump’s Tariff Obsession
In the president’s eyes, tariffs might simply be the price other countries should pay for admission to a premium market.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks on “reciprocal tariffs” during an event in the White House Rose Garden on April 2.
Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Last July, just before Donald Trump’s first and only debate with Joe Biden, a team from Bloomberg Businessweek traveled to Mar-a-Lago to interview Trump about his plans for the economy if he returned to the White House. Our 90-minute discussion spanned all the major topics: tax cuts, deregulation, China, the Federal Reserve and the fate of Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Afterward, as we were leaving, our team compared notes about what we’d learned and what had most surprised us. In the latter category, everyone was struck—and frankly a bit puzzled—by how eager Trump had been to talk about William McKinley, the 25th president. Twice, Trump brought him up unprompted, discoursing at some length about how McKinley was “the most underrated president” and one who “made this country rich.”
McKinley was, of course, a fervent protectionist and author of the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890, which raised average import duties to almost 50%—among the highest rates in US history at the time. In hindsight, Trump’s fixation with the man he admiringly dubbed “the Tariff King” was a clue that foreshadowed the global trade war he’d launch on “Liberation Day,” April 2.