The results 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 obstacles to international commerce, in a state the place greater than 40% of jobs rely on worldwide commerce, shall be crushing to many areas of Washington’s economic system.
That is no time for the state’s leaders to concede to commerce protectionism. They can’t settle for that farmers, producers and different companies right here will merely need to function with fewer locations and other people to promote their items and providers. An estimated $60 billion in annual exports is at stake.
“We all know this: That whenever you begin commerce wars, often which means you find yourself closing markets,” Washington U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell mentioned in late Could, 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 dwelling state’s entry to abroad markets, introducing laws to reassert Congress’ authority on tariffs and in addition combating to legally rein within the president’s overreach of emergency powers.
Final week, the senator added her name to an amicus transient 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 could 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 heart perched on the Pacific Rim. U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Central Washington’s 4th District, can be pushing again on the tariffs, demonstrating this work will 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 decrease 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 have to make their very own case for why financial coverage — free however honest commerce — is at its greatest when Washington’s staff and enterprise house owners have entry to international 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 Could that fewer and costlier merchandise might await American customers, however the actuality for Washington state goes past inflated costs.
When worldwide shippers cancel journeys to Seattle and different ports attributable to an absence of U.S.-bound items, the exports Washington produces — apples, beef, wheat and extra — go undelivered to international ports with out these ships to move them out.
Leaders additionally ought to try to optimize imports and exports via 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 value of frozen French fries to Japan in 2024 alone, in accordance with state Agriculture Division knowledge.
Within the face of tariffs, Washington ought to determine international locations the place partnerships might assist its personal firms and staff greatest 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 weak 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 Could to Victoria. The trouble laid the groundwork for an effort the Legislature authorized in 2024 to ascertain 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 depend upon each other for commerce, to guard our waters, the shut ties between our peoples, and raise one another up in occasions of tragedy,” Ferguson wrote of the U.S.-Canada relationship on social media after assembly with the Canadian consul common in Seattle.
That’s proper. Commerce, in any case, is a device 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 residing within the U.S. Time for state leaders at each degree to defend the state’s skill to commerce inside the worldwide, rules-based system. Washington has a lot to lose in the event that they don’t.
