The implications of the Trump administration’s trade-stifling tariff insurance policies are starting to sting in Washington state as summer time approaches. Container ships crusing to Seattle and Tacoma ports have dropped off greater than a 3rd much less imported cargo compared to last May. Canadians are making solely about half the journeys they made throughout our state’s northern border a 12 months in the past.
No two methods about it. These broad new limitations to international commerce, in a state the place greater than 40% of jobs rely upon worldwide commerce, will likely be crushing to many areas of Washington’s financial system.
That is no time for the state’s leaders to concede to commerce protectionism. They can not settle for that farmers, producers and different companies right here will merely must function with fewer locations and other people to promote their items and companies. An estimated $60 billion in annual exports is at stake.
“We all know this: That once you begin commerce wars, normally which means you find yourself closing markets,” Washington U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell mentioned in late Might, under the cranes of the Port of Seattle.
The Edmonds Democrat has fought as arduous as any politician towards the on-and-off-again tariffs. She seeks to maneuver each legislative and judicial levers of presidency in protection of her residence state’s entry to abroad markets, introducing laws to reassert Congress’ authority on tariffs and likewise preventing to legally rein within the president’s overreach of emergency powers.
Final week, the senator added her name to an amicus temporary a part of a lawsuit aiming to declare President Donald Trump’s tariffs unconstitutional.
The Occasions editorial board strongly supports the Trade Review Act of 2025, sponsored by Cantwell and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. It will reestablish congressional oversight on commerce, as outlined in Article 1 of the Structure.
Extra members of Congress ought to emulate Cantwell’s championing of Washington’s management function as a vital worldwide commerce middle perched on the Pacific Rim. U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Central Washington’s 4th District, can also be pushing again on the tariffs, demonstrating this work could be bipartisan.
“Our communities, agricultural producers, and producers depend on financial and political freedom to serve worldwide markets,” Newhouse wrote in a Seattle Times op-ed with Ed Schweitzer, founding father of Pullman-based Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. “Pointless tariffs reduce that freedom, discourage free commerce, and might hurt worldwide relationships.”
Washington’s Democrat-dominant delegation can’t merely push again towards Trump on tariffs. They need to make their very own case for why financial coverage — free however honest commerce — is at its finest when Washington’s staff and enterprise house owners have entry to overseas markets.
On the state degree, there’s additionally methods of circumventing the darkish clouds of the administration’s protectionist impulses. Gov. Bob Ferguson and state leaders ought to search a unified commerce technique that smooths the rails, highways and paths to Washington’s ports to make gateways extra aggressive.
President Trump acknowledged in Might that fewer and costlier merchandise could await American shoppers, however the actuality for Washington state goes past inflated costs.
When worldwide shippers cancel journeys to Seattle and different ports on account of a scarcity of U.S.-bound items, the exports Washington produces — apples, beef, wheat and extra — go undelivered to overseas ports with out these ships to move them out.
Leaders additionally ought to attempt to optimize imports and exports by way of Washington, as former Seattle Port Commissioner Stephanie Bowman recently penned in these pages. The Northwest Seaport Alliance’s Inland Rail Hub Strategic Initiative, for instance, is partnering with ports and looking for new logistic hubs in locations together with the Tri-Cities, serving to the state’s farmers transfer merchandise extra quickly and cheaply.
Suppose that is small potatoes? It’s not. Talking of potatoes: Washington farmers despatched greater than $400 million price of frozen French fries to Japan in 2024 alone, in keeping with state Agriculture Division information.
Within the face of tariffs, Washington ought to determine international locations the place partnerships may assist its personal corporations and staff finest swim towards the tariff tide. No the place is that this extra vital than in Washington’s relationship with British Columbia — a province with which this state shares the delicate saltwater of the Salish Sea, huge and more and more fire-prone forests and a mighty Columbia River susceptible to the vagaries of local weather change.
Within the face of Trump’s tariffs and threats to Canadian sovereignty, Lt. Gov. Denny Heck additionally led a delegation in Might to Victoria. The trouble laid the groundwork for an effort the Legislature accepted in 2024 to determine annual “interparliamentary exchanges” with B.C.’s authorities.
After a freeze decimated B.C.’s grape harvest for its wineries final 12 months, Heck led a legislative commerce mission that uncorked a partnership to ship Washington grapes north of the border to assist.
“We rely on each other for commerce, to guard our waters, the shut ties between our peoples, and elevate one another up in instances of tragedy,” Ferguson wrote of the U.S.-Canada relationship on social media after assembly with the Canadian consul basic in Seattle.
That’s proper. Commerce, in any case, is a software of diplomacy.
The tariffs have fueled financial uncertainty and the prospects for inflation at a time Washington already has among the many highest prices of dwelling within the U.S. Time for state leaders at each degree to defend the state’s capacity to commerce inside the worldwide, rules-based system. Washington has a lot to lose in the event that they don’t.
