Political Memes

Trump might contribute more to saving the world by downsizing the US economy in the end.

Not that he would do so intentionally.

Subsidies would have been great, but the practice appears to be much different. The tariffs you are talking about stemmed from a US trade representative investigation request that was initiated in 2018. As part of the 1974 Trade Act (section 301) retaliation measures are are allowed by the executive branch and comically tariffs are never mentioned as a retaliatory measure by name until 2018 really. For example tariffs are mentioned 24 times in the Congress.gov section 301 overview. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11346

Tariffs were never mentioned in 301 prior to that. https://usinfo.org/law/majorlaws/301.htm

Using section 301 in the format we have it now in my interpretation is that "retaliatory" measures can be taken globally or against an individual country as per the reviewed and debated investigations findings... But subsidies aren't a form of retaliation, and therefore would fall outside section 301 and require legislative approval. Which is what Biden should have faught. If he could have substantiated an argument that subsidies are a form of retaliation, maybe he could have performed them without congressional approval. It's a hard maybe though.

He should have had the executive branch conclude no retaliatory action was necessary as tariffs would have potentially caused further damage to the U.S. economy and trade. Thereby ending the USTRs investigation/fundings as something that shouldn't be addressed by the executive branch and forced the legislative branch to address it by encouraging such subsidies. They probably weren't going to go anywhere do to Congress being split but it may have helped stifle tarrifs being a standardized retaliatory act in our current era of trade agreements.