The War on Tariffs

Mike Johnson
Republicans are currently divided over whether to give the president room to maneuver—“the runway to do what it is he was elected to do,” as House Speaker Mike Johnson put it. Photo: Nathan Posner/Anadolu/Getty Images
Abby Livingston
April 8, 2025

Wall Street seemed to be of two minds on Monday, with stock markets churning up and down as investors take opposing sides of what is essentially an unknowable multitrillion-dollar question: Is Donald Trump’s trade war the commencement of bilateral negotiations or simply the end of the U.S.-led world order? In Washington, too, Republicans are currently divided over whether to give the president room to maneuver—“the runway to do what it is he was elected to do,” as House Speaker Mike Johnson put it obsequiously today—or to assert their legislative authority over tariffs, reclaiming an economic weapon that Trump is now wielding with impunity.