All the legal wrangling over President Donald Trump's tariffs is effectively a self-fulfilling prophecy for anti-Trump obstructionist forces, according to Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.
"The ultimate thing that I'm hearing, Kristen, more than anything else from all the companies that I've talked to, is they just want it to be set," Lankford told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
"They just want to know what the rules of the road are. Every time there's a new court hearing, every time there's a new change, it's destabilizing for every one of our businesses.
"So let's get all these things resolved as quickly as we possibly can."
The argument against tariffs is the expectation of higher inflation, but Lankford reminded host Kristen Welker that inflation has been tepid, so why can't the opposition to Trump just let him leverage trade deals with his levies?
"What we're seeing right now is inflation is still stable at this point," Lankford said. "We've not seen a rise in inflation during this time period. As the White House has said over and over again, they're watching that.
"They're attentive to that to be able to make sure we don't see that."
Conservatives have long championed "free and fair trade," but Trump has argued the preexisting global trade order he seeks to reform was unfair and not free for America.
"Now, I'm a free trader," Lankford said. "I want to see us trade with every single country. But that also means we've got to have a stable program that they've got to be able to receive our products, which they haven't in the past.
"Now many of these countries are opening up their markets to American sales."
According to Lankford, there isn't a simple response to who pays with regard to tariffs.
"Yeah, no question that tariffs are a tax," he said. "The question is who actually pays that. Part of it is going to be paid by the importer. Part of it is going to be paid by the exporter on that. It just breaks down product to product.
"Some products are more the actual consumer is going to pay, some products are more the actual exporter is going to pay."
Ultimately, the legal wrangling has to be solved by the Supreme Court settling the dispute over the constitutionality of Trump's tariffs.
"This is actually going to go to the Supreme Court next, because the way the law is actually written is the law gives the authority to the president to be able to make decisions regulating imports and exports," Lankford said. "And what the president is saying is tariffs are a way to be able to regulate imports and exports.
"To be very clear, what he is trying to do is to try to get more manufacturing into the United States, to get other countries to be able to open up their markets to American products, and to be able to cut our deficit.
"So those are the three targets he's trying to accomplish, and he is accomplishing all three of those.
"We have 10 trade deals that have now been done in seven very short months with major countries like the EU, with the U.K., with the Philippines, with Indonesia, South Korea, Japan. These are enormous trade agreements that have happened. And so for the court to step in and say he doesn't have the ability to be able to regulate trade ... [he] is now going to go to the Supreme Court to be able to determine that."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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