EDITOR:

I wrote Congressman Jack Bergman a couple of days ago urging him to take steps to reclaim Congress’ authority to set tariff tax rates.

Bergman’s response: By imposing reciprocal tariffs-matching or exceeding the trade barriers imposed by other nations-President Trump has successfully brought trading partners back to the negotiating table to secure deals that put American interests first. Since the tariffs were announced on April 2, more than 70 countries have reached out to negotiate new trade agreements with the United States.

Bergman states no desire to reclaim Congressional control of tariff tax rates.

Bergman believes Trump’s tariffs are reciprocal taxes that counter tariff taxes imposed by other countries. Trump’s new taxes are not reciprocal, the calculation Trump used is half the trade deficit with a country and has nothing to do with the other country’s tariff rates. For example, an American importer buys bananas from a country, the folks in that country can’t afford to buy much of anything we sell and their bananas get slapped with a huge tariff tax, an import cost eventually passed down to the American consumer who buys the bananas.

Bergman believes that 70 countries have reached out to negotiate tariff taxes. If true, that would indeed be good news. If true, the details of these agreements would be trumpeted on Fox News and my recently depreciated 401(k) would be joyously recovering. The entire country, nay the world, would be praising Trump.

So far, no joyous tariff deal news on Fox nor any other media outlet. The stock markets declined again today.

Bob Mammel

Rapid River