Trump 2.0 devastates trade---especially with China.

As disruptive and arguably ineffective as Trump’s policies were during his one term in office, including costly trade wars with China and Europe and the final death knell to global trade rules, he is promising much more a second time around.

Trump has floated the idea of a 10 percent tax on all imports from all countries as well as a tax of as much as 60 percent on everything that comes from China. Former Trump trade officials have spoken of intensifying the Biden administration’s limits on technology exports to China and seem keen to move beyond de-risking economic ties with Beijing toward a full decoupling.

“Look back at the first term—he did what he signaled he would do,” said Stephen Vaughn, an international trade lawyer at King & Spalding law firm in Washington and a former trade official in the Trump administration. “I think people should take him seriously when he talks about what he is going to do.”

It remains unclear under exactly what authority the possible next administration might seek to levy universal tariffs; in the Trump administration, the White House used national-security and unfair trade provisions of existing trade laws. But Trump and those likely to again form his trade brain trust are clear about why they hope to double down on policies that seemed to pay such few dividends the first time around.

Raising tariffs on imports, especially from big economic rivals such as China, would lower the huge U.S. trade deficit and raise billions of dollars in revenue for the U.S. Treasury, they argue. Tariffs on imports, or even the threat of higher tariffs, could force unwilling trade partners to open their markets to more American goods. Raising tariffs on Chinese exports, in particular, could limit the fallout from Beijing’s reliance on exporting to the rest of the world its own industrial overcapacity. And making foreign goods more expensive, even the intermediate bits that are needed by U.S. manufacturers to turn out finished products, will help make U.S. companies more competitive on the global stage.

“I don’t think Trump is advocating tariffs for the sake of tariffs,” Vaughn said. “I think he is looking at a problem, which is: How do we get other countries to give us more reciprocal treatment, and how do we avoid” increasing the trade deficit? “Secondly, how do we stop China from very dramatically distorting a lot of key markets? Again, tariffs may be a tool there.”

Unlike Trump’s first arrival on the political stage, his ideas on trade are no longer coming entirely out of left field. But a reprisal of Trump’s trade policies threatens higher prices for consumers, no improvement to the trade deficit, a tougher competitive environment for U.S. manufacturers, and a weakening of the U.S. ability to rally partners and allies to counter China and Russia.

In 2016, the idea of raising taxes on U.S. consumers to limit the appeal of goods made by friends and foes alike was radical; so was the idea of jettisoning years of groundwork on U.S. trade deals with countries in Europe and Asia, as well as tearing up and renegotiating the provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

But since Trump embraced tariffs and trade wars during his time in office, they have become an entrenched part of U.S. policy—at least under U.S. President Joe Biden, and certainly among the modern-day Republican Party.

“Things that seemed out of the question when he first took office now seem to be acceptable,” said Wendy Cutler, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, ticking off, among other measures, the higher tariffs Trump levied on NATO allies and the systematic dismantling of the World Trade Organization. The Biden administration has maintained many of the Trump-era tariffs and has intensified trade competition, especially over technology, with China.