Here’s what you need to know:
- The Federal government requires tariff duties to cover its spending and Trump and future administrations are unlikely to eliminate that revenue source.
- Congress is unlikely to push many bills to the President in the final months of2025. Defense spending will get passed but other bills could be delayed or discarded.
- The inabilty of Congress to set Federal policy breeds state overreach; states are using laws to create taxes, increase revenue and balance budgets.
- MAGA: Will it only work for Trump? How will the GOP reform itself post-Trump and what aspects of the movement will stick with voters.
Brian Wild thinks tariffs are here to stay. As a free trade guy, he doesn’t like it. “I consider them wrong. I’m as anti-tariff as you can get,” he says. But over the last eight months, as President Donald J. Trump has pushed for tariffs using every method he could find, the world has changed.
Other nations have realized the genie isn’t going back in the bottle. Free trade in its 2024 form is dead. Nationalist trade policy has earned support in pockets across the globe. And in the United States, the Federal government has become dependent on the revenue.
“Our government has a spending problem,” Wild, chief government relations officer at NAW, told attendees during a government policy outlook keynote address Wednesday at the Commercial Vehicle Solutions Network (CVSN) Summit in Washington, D.C. “These tariffs have brought a ton of revenue into our system.”
How much, exactly? Wild says early estimates indicate $300 billion in 2025 alone, with the potential to exceed $4 trillion in ten years. For an administration that just passed ‘One Big Beautiful’ tax cut, Wild says duties revenue from tariffs offer the Federal government a lifeline.
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“[Tariffs] would fully fund all tax cuts Republicans passed, with a surplus,” he says. Which means even if President Trump’s IEEPA reciprocal tariffs are struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court this fall, it is going to be “very hard to unwind that revenue” from the government’s balance sheet.
“This is going to be part of bloodstream of policy for a while,” he says. “You’ll operate your businesses under a tariff regime for some part of the next decade.”
As for which tariffs stay and which are discarded, Wild said it’s hard to say right now.
The Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, automobiles and other sectors are constitutional and likely to remain in the years ahead. Wild says the administration could move rates up or down on specific categories based on anti-dumping investigations but says President Trump has the authority to enact 232 tariffs and believes he will do so throughout his term.
Wild says President Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are less certain.
A Federal Appeals Court struck down the tariffs as unconstitutional in the spring, but the U.S. Supreme Court announced Tuesday they would hear the case in November. Wild agrees with the Appeals Court that the tariffs appear unconstitutional, but says it remains to be seen if the Supreme Court will say the same or support President Trump in this issue like it has with others.
Wild says if the high court sides against Trump, it’s possible the President will use his Section 232 powers to implement more tariffs to achieve his IEEPA goals. He also says overturning the IEEPA tariffs would negate the nation-specific deals the President made with some nations (UK, Japan, etc.) after the reciprocal tariffs were first announced.
A summary from NAW's Brian Wild on what to expect if the Supreme Court rules against President Donald J. Trump's IEEPA tariffs.
What to expect on Capitol Hill this fall
Wild’s keynote address Wednesday wasn’t all tariffs. He also looked into short-term and long-term policy issues he believes will drive policy discussion in the future, as well as a future possible bi-partisan issues where compromise could exist.
In the immediate future, Wild says Congess is focused on government and defense spending. He says a government shutdown isn’t a certainty but it’s unlikely the fiscal year 2026 budget will be complete by the end of the month, when its due. He says it’s possible Republican leaders would welcome a short-term shutdown but think the likely future is extensions of current spending to keep the government operational while the budget is finalized.
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Wild also believes the defense spending bill — formally the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — will be completed by year end, as that’s generally the only bill Congress always turns in on time. He says lobbyists and policymakers will try to use the NDAA as the train that gets their issues to the President’s desk because it’s the only bill guaranteed to get there.
“If you want to pass by the end of the year, you try to hitch a ride on NDAA,” he says.
Federal inaction leading to state incursion
Wild also spent time Wednesday addressing the impact Federal legislative inaction has at the state level.
“Most people believe the U.S. Congress does a terrible job,” Wild says, stating inactivity in D.C. creates a policy vacuum that is filled by states.
“The difference between states and the Federal government is [the latter doesn’t] have a balanced budget amendment,” Wild says. “Almost every state in the union has to balance their budgets.”
And he says many are using laws as revenue-generating tools.
One of the most harmful new state-level rules impacting NAW and CVSN members are extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws, which levy taxes on manufacturing entities for recycling. Wild says NAW didn’t participate in policy discussions around EPR laws when they were in development because “we didn’t see ourselves as producers. And now we’re dealing with those consequences.”
He says many states are choosing to charge warehouse distributors and wholesalers as manufacturers instead of actual producers.“The distribution tier is being picked on because manufacturing is the favorite son of policy makers and consumers are the voters,” he says.
Wild says NAW is in litigation in Oregon to fight the state’s EPR law and intends to do the same in Colorado, the next state where one will be implemented.
Trump and MAGA: What’s going to stick?
Finally, Wild took time to look at President Trump’s political style, and ponder how it will shape national politics in the years ahead.
Beyond tariffs, Wild believes Trump’s nationalist tendencies and desire to shrink the Federal government will be a hallmark of Republican policies for years to come. He’s not as sure on immigration, where Trump has already pulled back his rhetoric around some industries (hotels, agriculture) due to workforce limitations. Wild also questions if GOP candidates will be as successful pushing Trump’s policies as Trump has been.
Early in his presentation Wild referred to President Trump as a ‘lame duck’ president, term-limited exit the office in January 2029. But when questioned by the audience about the President’s possible desire to run again in 2028, Wild admitted Trump might test it. “He’s pushed the limit every single time,” he says.
Similar to the IEEPA tariffs, Wild says he interprets a third term as unconstitutional. Yet he says even if that’s the case, Trump is unlikely to step out of the race until the absolute last minute to hold on to power and support as long as possible.
“How much of MAGA is a cult of personality?” Wild asks. “What does independence from Trump look like? I don’t know.”
