One Trump attack on American newspapers has been repelled for now. But the clock is ticking.

Elections matter. 

Earlier this month, the Donald Trump/Wilbur Ross Department of Commerce imposed tariffs on newsprint products from Canada.  Here is my August 26 blog discussing this move:

*******************************************************************************************

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Trump Tariff on Canadian Paper Products: Conscious Attack on Newspapers, Coincidence, or Paranoia?

In the 2016 election, only 5% of the nation's daily and weekly newspapers endorsed Donald Trump.  See here.

Yesterday, an article  in the Washington Post explained how the Trump Tariff on Canadian paper products are “strangling American newspapers. ”  In June, when the tariff was first imposed, a report in the Post Business Section predicted this impact. Neither piece made what seems to me a pretty obvious connection.

Conscious attack, coincidence, or paranoia?  Well, to quote what often IS a fake news source, "we report, you decide."

http://davidfishback.blogspot.com/2018/08/trump-tariff-on-canadian-paper-products.html

*******************************************************************************************

Yesterday, the Post reported that the International Trade Commission unanimously voted to nullify those tariffs. Newspapers get a reprieve as trade commission nullifies tariffs.

While the Post article notes that the ITC is an independent federal agency, it did not observe that only one of the five members was appointed by President Trump (and that nominee, Jason Kearns, had earlier been nominated by President Obama, but the Republican Senate had not acted on the nomination; he was renominated by President Trump in June 2017). https://www.usitc.gov/press_room/bios.htm  

So this most recent political attack on the print media has been turned back. But as President Trump makes new appointments as the present members’ terms’ expire (the term of the chair of the ITC, David Johanson, a Republican nominated by President Obama, is over on December 16 of this year), we can expect that he will seek to find people who will bend to his will.  

The clock is ticking.  The fate of democratic norms will be determined by the 2018 and 2020 elections.  That fate is in the hands of the American people.  May we be up to the task.