President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, citing poor foreign trade and economic practices, on April 2. In his executive order, he attributed these conditions to the “large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits,” which occur when a country’s imports exceed its exports.
As part of Trump’s plan to “rebuild” the economy by reshoring manufacturing and equalizing global trade, he revealed a set of reciprocal tariffs on goods imported to the United States, subjecting all nations to a minimum 10% tariff starting on April 5. The administration placed additional tariff rates on nations the U.S. has the largest trade deficits with.
The fallout of Trump’s tariffs was immediate. At the stock market, the S&P 500 experienced its worst plunge since the 2020 COVID pandemic, and bond investors vocalized alarm over the tariffs. On April 9, Trump announced a 90-day pause on the reciprocal tariffs except for China.
New University spoke with experts in the UCI community, many of whom voiced concerns over Trump’s policies.
According to UCI economics professor Priyaranjan Jha, Trump appears to view bilateral trade deficits as the U.S. being taken advantage of.
“This is something that drives economists completely crazy,” Jha told New University. “This is a sign of complete economic illiteracy, that you think of bilateral trade deficits as a sign of cheating by other countries. Because there is no economic logic to it.”
For UCI professor of economics Stergios Skaperdas, one of the issues with Trump’s new policies is that they reflect a lack of clarity with his administration’s goals. Skaperdas said that they have no clear plan, and their constant back-and-forth with tariffs makes companies and other nations reluctant to trust the United States.
“What is the objective in the end with this kind of approach?” Skaperdas said in an interview with New University. “There is a way to have tariffs and industrial policy as a way of reindustrializing, bringing back manufacturing to the U.S. and creating more jobs in the area and doing that. But for that you have to have very targeted and very slowly evolving tariffs and targeted in certain sectors.”
Jha also said that Trump’s administration appeared to be targeting trade instead of the actual source of the decline in the U.S. manufacturing workforce.
“Most of that decline is not because of trade; it is because of technological change, automation, robotization and things like that,” Jha said. “Our manufacturing productivity has gone up so much that even if you didn’t trade, you won’t have 30% of workers engaged in manufacturing.”
Jha said their goal of increasing manufacturing productivity growth is unlikely to be achieved.
“You could actually have targeted support for some industries,” Jha said. “But just kind of a blanket tariff is mindless.”
John Graham, professor emeritus of marketing and international business, stated that it’s well-known that trade sanctions do not work.
“Politicians like them because it makes them look like they’re doing something,” Graham told New University. “But the purpose of international relations is to create peace and prosperity between countries, and trade sanctions accomplish neither. In fact, they do the opposite. They tend to destroy relationships. They destroy prosperity and they destroy peace.”
Distinguished Professor Etel Solingen shared similar sentiments regarding U.S. foreign relations.
“The substantive nature and magnitude of the tariffs, the undiscriminating targets of the tariffs, and the volatility of decisions all contribute to undermining U.S. foreign relations as we knew them for many decades,” Solingen wrote in an email to New University.
For Graham, one particular figure is responsible for influencing the U.S.’s damaging tariff policies.
“Trump has cobbled together — and the Senate has approved — a circus clown car of cabinet members, and the only thing worse than all those people creating all kinds of problems is the current issue and the advice from Peter Navarro,” Graham said.
Navarro, Trump’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, is currently under fire for his role in crafting Trump’s tariff policy. He is also a professor emeritus at UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business.
Jha said that Navarro was in the business school, not in the economics department, so he didn’t know Navarro personally.
“He’s not a trade economist,” Jha said. “He has a PhD from Harvard, but not in international trade … And he’s been kind of anti-trade, as well, from the beginning.”
Graham, however, knew Navarro well, having been on the same faculty for 25 years. According to Graham, they both published books on China in 2008. Graham’s, co-authored with Mark Lam, was titled “China Now.” Navarro wrote “Death by China,” the text that allegedly inspired Trump to hire him in the first place. Graham’s book discussed how China is an opportunity; Navarro’s was centered around how China is a threat.
“I said, ‘Peter, this is great. We completely disagree on how China is related to the United States. Why don’t we do seminars together? We can argue about this stuff and we can both sell more books,’” Graham said. “And he said, ‘No, I’m not doing that.’ And part of the reason he didn’t want to debate me about China was he really knew little about China. His co-author, who was a doctoral student at the time, really helped him.”
They got along fine, Graham said, until their books came out.
“I didn’t know that in 2008, but he knowingly lied in his book,” Graham said, referring to how Navarro fabricated a scholar to reference in his books. “And so he’s a disgraced academic and a disgraceful person, both.”
Regarding Navarro as an adviser, Skaperdas provided a different perspective, pointing out that the policies Trump is following may not even be those recommended by Navarro.
“The one who seems to be even more of an influence is the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers — who is Stephen Miran, I think,” Skaperdas said. “You can disagree with what they [economists] say. But economists, we don’t know everything, and we disagree about things.”
Regardless, Skaperdas said that it’s important for administrations to think about efficiency, which Trump’s policies hinder.
“The economy depends on having an effective state capacity, and that becomes endangered also by, in my view, by the interventions that you see,” Skaperdas said. “There is inefficiency in some organizations, but you don’t throw [out] … the baby with the bathwater.”
As Trump’s administration continues to cause turmoil with its list of exemptions and fresh levies, the U.S. economy’s future remains unknown.
When asked what people can do during these times of uncertainty, Jha suggested writing to senators and congresspeople. Trump is currently able to raise tariffs because he’s declaring trade deficits a national emergency under the National Emergency Act, and Congress can reverse that declaration, Jha said.
“Maybe if enough Congress representatives hear from their constituents, they may think about doing something,” Jha said.
Graham’s advice stretched beyond confronting only the Trump administration’s economics.
“Here’s the thing that young people can do … Whenever you have a sitting politician in front of you, you need to ask him or her a very simple question: ‘Do donations to your campaign influence your voting?’” Graham said. “You can cause a revolution, you can change the system by always asking that question anytime there’s a politician in front of you. Because they won’t answer it.”
Zoë Chang is a Features Intern for the spring 2025 quarter. She can be reached at zoeac@uci.edu.
Edited by Kaelyn Kwon.