Political Science ETDs

Publication Date

Spring 4-6-2024

Abstract

On March 1, 2018, President Trump declared a 25% tariff on certain steel imports by invoking Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act. Despite the extraordinary tariff measure, my research with logit regression and negative binomial regression analysis finds that the Trump Administration in its tariff exclusion process favored constituencies with a higher share of the president’s supporters and allowed import products from China more likely to receive the exclusions. I argue that the Trump Administration took these contradictory trade actions to achieve multiple goals at the same time: to pressure foreign trade partners and to protect vulnerable domestic industries on the one hand and to avoid hurting domestic users of the tariffed products on the other hand. Prioritizing supporters maximizes the electoral utility of each tariff exclusion. The favorable treatment of Chinese steel imports particularly suggests that domestic electoral concerns were at least as important as foreign policy considerations in the Trump Administration’s processing of tariff exclusion requests.

Degree Name

Political Science

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Political Science

First Committee Member (Chair)

Michael Rocca

Second Committee Member

Timothy Krebs

Third Committee Member

Christopher Butler

Fourth Committee Member

Xiaoyang Wang

Language

English

Keywords

Tariff exclusions, Presidential unilateralism, Congressional delegation

Document Type

Dissertation

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