Remember the old joke, "I'm from Washington and I'm here to help you"?
The fact that this is indeed a joke helps explain the frustration and anger that is building here in Tennessee over the latest political game in Washington - imposing tariffs on American imports from other countries.
These new tariffs are nothing less than a stealthy new tax on Tennesseans. It might barely be possible to justify them if they really did protect the jobs we have or create new ones. But they do just the opposite.
With these tariffs, and with the retaliatory tariffs imposed by other countries on us that follow, Tennessee businesses and farmers become less competitive in the world. Suddenly, it's more expensive to do business with Tennessee. In the end, in the real world, that means one thing - a loss of jobs in Tennessee.
Farmers have become among the first to feel the impact. We do a vast export business in soybeans, for example, and farmers are already seeing falling prices and a loss of future orders caused by retaliatory tariffs.
This is not a short-term problem for Tennessee agriculture. China is not going to stop buying soybeans; it will just buy them from other countries such as Brazil. Once those patterns are established and Brazilian farmers invest in growing more soybeans, that business is not coming back to Tennessee - it's gone.
Distillers making world-famous Tennessee whiskey are hurt by the tariffs that have been imposed on them. International Paper, headquartered in Memphis and with manufacturing plants across Tennessee, is deeply concerned.
But the biggest impact may well be on Tennessee's automotive industry. This industry is huge - about 135,000 jobs in our state - and has been built over the course of a generation with a lot of effort and investment.
I was personally involved as governor in bringing Volkswagen to Chattanooga and the Nissan headquarters to Middle Tennessee and feel a deep responsibility to the workers there. We have three major assembly plants in our state and nearly 1,000 automotive suppliers that manufacture the parts they use to build cars. Many of these automotive suppliers are in smaller communities where job losses will do a lot of damage.
It would be the height of stupidity to let political gamesmanship in Washington undermine and damage an industry we have worked so hard to create, an industry so valuable to our state and its workers.
It's well past the time for "strongly-worded" letters to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross or anyone else. Our officials need to make crystal clear just how much damage these tariffs are creating and take back some control over trade policy. I applaud Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker for working with others to do just that. We should all support them.
Tennessee's message to Washington should be short and clear: You're not helping - stop this clumsy fooling around with trade. We don't want new taxes, however disguised. And we don't want to kill jobs. We want to get back to creating them.
Phil Bredesen, a businessman and entrepreneur, is running for the U.S. Senate seat for Tennessee being vacated by Sen. Corker. Bredesen served two terms as Tennessee's 48th governor (2003-2011). He was mayor of Nashville from 1991 to 1999. Before this, he was the CEO of a public health care company.