What If Trump Wins?

Photo by Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

With the clock ticking down to Election Day and the presidential race too close to call, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what a win by each candidate might look like. Today I’m going to start this two-part limited series with a look at what a Trump presidency might be like. I’ll follow up with an examination of a potential Kamala Harris win later this week.

To begin with, one of Donald Trump’s main campaign promises was to enact across-the-board tariffs on everything imported into the US. Trump’s tariff plan includes 10-20 percent taxes on imports from most countries and a 60-percent tax on goods from China. I mention Trump’s trade taxes first because they would probably constitute one of his first actions as president. Back in 2020, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought by steel importers contesting Trump’s earlier tariffs. This allowed a lower court ruling to stand that found Congress had delegated tariff authority to the president. In other words, Trump can impose tariffs on Day One without Congress.

What would happen if he does so? We need only look back to 2018 to see. The targets of US tariffs would impose their own retaliatory tariffs on American exports. Trump would likely respond with yet another round of tariffs and the trade war would escalate out of control.

Tariffs are taxes and taxes are paid by the end user of a product or service. In this case, that means the American consumer. Prices would rise for imported items as well as American goods that use foreign components or raw materials. Another term for rising prices is “inflation.”

American exports would also be hit hard. Under Trump’s original round of tariffs in 2018, American farmers lost export markets for their crops and manufacturers found themselves as a competitive disadvantage to foreign competitors in markets due to extremely high duties on their products. Farm bankruptcies spiked after the onset of the trade war spurring Republicans to enact massive farm subsidies to protect their rural base. Forbes notes that Trump’s payouts to farmers cost more than US nuclear forces.

At the same time, US manufacturing entered a recession before the pandemic and shed thousands of jobs. A big story at the time was the news that Harley Davidson planned to shift production to a European factory to avoid the tariffs that were cutting into their sales. Trump attacked the company for “wav[ing] the white flag” and not being patient. Per The Week, the increase in taxes from six to 31 percent would have equaled 15 percent of the company’s annual profit.

There are other factors at play as well. Some may recall that steel prices fell in 2019 amid the trade war tariff increases. Tariff fears initially led to a buying binge which drove up prices, but then a supply glut combined with softening demand caused the price of steel to drop as the Law of Unintended Consequences kicked in. Stock prices for American steel companies also plummeted. The lesson here is that inflation can be offset by an economic slowdown, and a new trade war may bring about the recession that Republicans have been predicting since 2021.

Trump’s other main platform plank is mass deportations of illegal (and possibly legal) immigrants. A big question in my mind is whether the president has the authority under current law to carry out the massive police sweeps necessary to round up millions of illegals, detain them, and deport them.

Per Axios, Trump has said he intends to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out his deportations, but there are problems with this strategy. The law was invoked to remove foreign nationals during the world wars and the War of 1812, and applies in the event “any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government.”

The obvious problem is that immigration is not an invasion by a foreign country. Even though many anti-immigration activists use the term “invasion,” it isn’t an opinion but a fact that even illegal immigration is not an invasion in the legal sense as Lawfare explained last spring. Calling Immigrants “invaders” is no less redefining a common word than the left redefining “gender” and other terms.

If Trump tries to use the Alien Enemies Act to authorize mass deportations, he will quickly find himself in court as immigrants challenge their removal. This would be a court battle that he would be likely to lose. Don’t forget that there are a great many other immigration laws and rulings, many of which conflict, that the government must comply with aside from just the ones that hardliners want to enforce. That includes laws that allow people who cross the border illegally to ask for asylum.

Assuming Trump was able to push through his deportation plan, it would not be good for the economy. About 20 percentof the US workforce is made up of immigrants and five percent is illegals. Illegals are often employed in difficult jobs that Americans won’t do such as backbreaking farm labor and monotonous factory jobs. Without these workers, American farms and businesses don’t produce their goods, the economy slows, and native-born workers lose their jobs as well.

It gets worse. If the deportations are combined with more restrictions on legal immigration, as Trump did last time, replacement workers will be hard to find and many highly-educated workers who would have immigrated legally to the US will go elsewhere and work for our competitors. When Trump waged war on immigration in his first term, the Canadian economy was a major beneficiary of immigrant tech workers who did not come to work for America.

The only way the immigration problem is going to be fixed long term is with immigration reform. The current laws need to be updated and harmonized. Because of the filibuster, a one-sided immigration bill will not pass. This is why the filibuster will probably not survive a Trump presidency.

During his first term, Trump advocated nuking the filibuster, but as Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell resisted. If Trump becomes president next year, it is likely that Republicans will have a majority in Congress as well. If the GOP controls both houses and the presidency and without Mitch McConnell, the pressure on whoever becomes Majority Leader to kill the filibuster will be intense. Most remaining Republicans have little stomach for opposing Trump’s wishes, and that will be even more true if he wins the election.

Killing the filibuster would open the door to a verifiable cornucopia of Republican dreams. They could enact a national abortion ban, although Trump has said he would veto such a bill, fund a border wall, ban transgender athletes, and do whatever else else could get 51 Senate votes. The only limit would be the courts.

The downside would be electoral blowback and the fact that Democrats could undo everything the next time they were in power. But Trump and MAGA don’t typically take a long view of the consequences of their actions.

On foreign policy, Trump would work to restrict foreign aid with assistance to Ukraine a particular target. The Russo-Ukraine war wouldn’t necessarily end, but Russia would gain an advantage. Other allies would be skeptical of Trump’s backing, especially those involved as adversaries in his trade wars, and American influence would wane.

That might sound appealing to MAGA isolationists, but nature and foreign affairs abhor a vacuum. If American influence declines, someone else is going to gain power. The obvious candidates are China, Russia, and Iran or, if we are lucky, Europe and India.

Finally, Trump is 78 and his age has been showing. There is a decent chance that President Vance would finish the term. That opens up even more uncertainty since Vance is largely devoid of firm beliefs or principles, having made the journey from Trump-is-Hitler to Trump VP pick in eight short years. It’s impossible to know how a man without convictions [Trump at least has 34] would govern.

But what about the even darker side of a Trump presidency? That is harder to predict.

In a second Trump term, The Former Guy would be less inhibited by advisors than in his first term. Former aides and cabinet officials have sounded the alarm over Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. For example, we are told that Trump threatened to use the military against protesters in 2020 but backed down. He has made the a similar threat to use the military against Americans in recent days.

Such a move would likely spark resignations by military commanders, but thus would allow Trump to install commanders that are more loyal, giving him more control. To a president unconcerned with appearances and norms and bent on revenge, there is little to stop abuse, especially if his party backs him in Congress.

In some cases, the courts might intervene but standing to sue is often a problem in cases against government action. Even if courts rule against the president, there is always the possibility that Trump could simply say, “Mr. Roberts has made his decision now let him enforce it.” Keep in mind that enforcement of laws and court orders is the job of the Executive Branch.

A ruling against mass deportations might present such a crisis moment. Deportations are on shaky legal ground but are popular with Trump’s base. He would conceivably have strong Republican support if he ignored an injunction halting his deportation plans.

The American constitutional system is highly dependent on government officials doing what they are supposed to and voluntarily complying with the law. If a president refuses to comply and Congress won’t hold him accountable, there is little recourse. The courts cannot enforce their own decisions. It would be up to the military, law enforcement, and bureaucrats to refuse to obey unlawful presidential orders, and an Administration filled with Trump loyalists would not be inclined to disobey.

If our institutions hold, Trump’s excesses would provoke a backlash. Very quickly, people would remember why they fired Trump in 2020. If Democrats keep becoming more moderate, the Republican Party might become a long-term minority as voters decide not to trust the party of Trump with power in the future. Republicans would definitely see short-term losses in Congress and state governments.

It is impossible to know exactly what abuses of power Trump would commit, but we can be sure that his presidency would usher in a series of constitutional crises and a likely expansion of presidential power. Trump’s first term brought a Supreme Court ruling that presidents are above the law when it comes to their official acts. Trump would be certain to make use of this newfound immunity in new and creative ways.

One fundamental truth of the Trump era is that he consistently behaves worse than anyone thought possible. Few believed that he would refuse to accept election results in 2020 or that he would blatantly steal federal documents by the truckload or build an entire campaign around demonizing immigrants or interfere with FEMA’s disaster relief efforts in a swing state. We found out different in all cases.

It’s impossible to say where a second Trump presidency would lead, but we can say without a doubt that it would take America to a very dark place. If we are lucky, it would be a place from which we could return, but there is no guarantee of that.