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Trump’s tariffs anger Europe — 96 Comments

1. What I learned recently is that a lot of the trade “understandings” between the US and Europe, as well as between the US and Japan, date back to the end of World War Two, when those economies were shattered. To keep them out of the Communist sphere, America allowed Europe and Japan to “protect” their domestic industries with tariffs while lowering our own trade barriers to them. It worked. Europe and Japan are major players in the world markets.

   But World War Two was 80 years ago, and America’s been asking politely for those two regions to become more fair to us in the way they trade with us. They’re not interested in that. Like with America underwriting European security by paying the lion’s share of NATO (and doing the same for Japan to keep China away), we were also underwriting their economic security for 80 years, allowing them to nationalize their health care, etc.

   Of course, to nations on the receiving end of unequal treatment, equality feels like punishment.

   Here’s my question. If someone who’d been abusing you for years was coming after you again, and you had a gun that when you pulled the trigger it shot two bullets. One bullet was large and would really do damage to your attacker; the other bullet was small and wouldn’t hurt very much, but it would hit you. If that was the case, would you pull the trigger?

   That’s how I look at tariffs. There will be pain for us. But more pain will be directed at our enemies. Enemies defined as those countries that want to keep taking our generosity for granted.

2. The next step is probably attacks on the “wreckers” and “hoarders” who are preventing the glorious economic results Trump promised.

3. Trump has a foolish view of economics as a zero sum game. If one side wins another must lose. He thinks tariffs will make the US win.
   He is wrong. Free trade enriches everyone. Go listen to Ron Paul on the topic. Or many others.
   And Europe is angry. So are many countries. There is a lot of lazy anti Americanism around. But how many “don’t buy US campaigns” can you absorb?
   And purely anecdotally I have heard a lot of people saying they are avoiding US holidays for a while.
   Thoroughly depressing and unnecessary

4. “the US is no longer accepting the fact that Europe protects itself and the US doesn’t” – you are kidding, right? The US has a vast array of tariffs *and of other barriers to entry* for foreign products and services. Apparently none of these were factored into this POTUS decision.

   As just one example that comes to mind, I offer the Jones Act: cargo can only be transported between US harbors on US-built, US-owned, US-flagged and US-manned ships. Here the US is protecting “itself” (actually: its shipbuilding industry and its sailors) against competitors from other countries, and that ever since 1920.

   And honestly, there are FAR more examples out there. Please find out about this, because the narrative that “the US is not protecting itself” is both false and pernicious.

   Incidentally, Coyote points to that pesky little thing, the US Constitution, which just happens to say that the power to levy tariffs lies with Congress, not the President: https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2025/04/two-questions-and-four-ironies-about-trumps-taxes.html

   And there is a reason why economists pretty unanimously are aghast and predict that this will cause a lot of pain, and not only to some fat cats that got rich off cheap Chinese imports… because those cheap Chinese imports turned into cheap durable and consumer goods for US consumers and businesses, and all of them will now face higher prices. In many industries, there is simply no comparable US producer, so the idea of “buying American” to substitute Chinese goods is simply not feasible. And for those industries where there ARE US producers, these US companies will happily raise prices now that their competition has to raise theirs to recoup tariffs, because after all, why shouldn’t they take advantage of the fact that the playing field just got tilted?

   My best guess is a spurt of inflation because of all that merry price raising (wasn’t Trump elected to combat inflation?), plus major pressure on the stock market because of the Trump-induced regime uncertainty, and indeed lots of business going out of business because their supply chains just got burdened with incredible tariffs.

5. David Clayton:

   The Great and Wonderful Oz has spoken, and now we are all wiser.

   Oh, and of course no one here has ever heard of Ron Paul.

   It takes a lot to make me get snarky, but condescending simplifiers can do it.

6. It’s like I linked to in the other thread, when it was Biden’s administration there was no media hand-wringing and pants-wetting about tariffs, and Janet Yellen was using exactly the same logic Trump was using and no one said she was an economic illiterate. I’m quoting here again, from just last April. It’s like the media thinks they have the neuralyzer from “Men In Black” and they can just wipe our memories when they want.

   “I wouldn’t rule out anything out at this point. We need to keep everything on the table. We want to work with the Chinese to see if we can find a solution,” she said in an interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen, when asking about the possibility of Washington imposing tariffs if China does not adjust its approach to industry incentives.

   “I’m not thinking so much of export restrictions, as some shifts in their macroeconomic policy, and a reduction in the amount of, particularly local government subsidies, to firms,” Yellen said.

   She nevertheless stressed the need to create a level playing field in the green technology space.

   “We just want to make sure that we’re not driven out of business, and that our firms and workers have opportunities in these industries which will be important ones in our future,” she added.

   What she was talking about was “fair trade” and a goddamned protective tariff with an argument satirized by Bastiat 150 years ago, and all the pundits nodded along. Just one year ago this was. No economists popped up in legacy media to lecture her on why this was fallacious.

   But she was protecting HER cronies and THEIR cronies. And that makes all the difference.

7. Habeck is the energy minister (green of course) who has presided over the dismantling of their energy infrastructure notably coal and nuclear, so they have a host of other problems

8. Gorgasal:

   That’s the administration’s position, but I followed it with a link to a piece that says it’s not true, plus a quote from that piece explaining the rather dubious way the Trump administration gets its high figures for European protectionism.

9. Some time back, likely the Bush admin, a tariff on imported steel was imposed/raised. Helped domestic steel producers and their employers.
   Thomas Sowell said that the increased prices stopped or prevented so many projects requiring steel that the net was job losses exceeding the gains in the steel industry.
   But the latter had a concentrated voice; big corporations, lobbyists, congressmen from those districts.
   The various, anonymous projects which ceased or didn’t start were one-offs here and there and that other place. No concentrated voice.

10. @Richard Aubrey:But the latter had a concentrated voice; big corporations, lobbyists, congressmen from those districts.
    The various, anonymous projects which ceased or didn’t start were one-offs here and there and that other place. No concentrated voice.

    Seen and Unseen. Granted. But the thing is always true, unless you are in legacy media and the industries you favor are the ones getting protected by a Democratic President for whom you act as a propaganda arm.

11. Why Neo so ‘snarky’ I kept the point clear and short. If you misread that in some way I apologise.
    Do you think Ron Paul is wrong and Trump is right?

12. @David Clayton:Do you think Ron Paul is wrong and Trump is right?

    Do you think Janet Yellen was wrong to argue for tariffs a year ago using Trump’s logic when she was Secretary of the Treasury for Biden? Do you think she thinks economics is a zero-sum game? Was she unqualified to lead the Federal Reserve?

    Or do these experts lie to you when they want?

    Here’s Yellen reassuring you that tariffs won’t be noticed by consumers.

    Was it wrong when she said it? If so, why did she tell you wrong things? If not, why is it wrong for Trump to say it?

13. Trump has a foolish view of economics as a zero sum game.
    ==
    He’s been in business cutting mutually advantageous deals for 57 years.

14. @Mitchell,

    Hmmm…I’d have to know more before I pull the trigger. Is your enemy someone who’s trying to kill you, or someone who just annoys you? How much damage would the bullets cause where? A small bullet may not cause a lot of damage, but if it nicks an artery, you’ll bleed out in ten minutes. At any rate, in about 99% of the cases, you’re better off holding your fire and working out a diplomatic solution.

15. Do you think Ron Paul is wrong and Trump is right?
    ==
    Ron has a son who is a serious person, one Dr. Rand Paul. Ron Paul himself is the proverbial stopped clock.

16. Nikita’s I think everyone arguing for tariffs is wrong. Free markets have made countries wealthy.
    Tariffs are just another big government tax.

    Art Deco – global markets and national economies are not the same as a New York real estate business. Trump was happy to see many of his businesses go bankrupt. Not a great way to run a country.

17. “Free trade enriches everyone.”

    And unicorns are great pets for kids.

    In Oz…everyone keeps crapping on about “free trade” as if it actually exists, but POTUS Trump noted the huge barriers to genuinely “free” trade here…particularly biosecurity…which in the era of COVID, varroa mites, & fire ants, not to mention feral animals by the score, is a near farce.

    Keep digging…there’s a unicorn in there somewhere.

18. David Clayton, the dead horse of “but he had bankruptcies “ is silly. He took risks and some didn’t workout. And some had the Trump name on them but were licensing deals not owned by Trump.
    Regarding other countries retaliating, none that matter can afford to walk away from the 26% of the world market that is the USA. Trump understands the leverage that gives him, and I see nothing wrong with forcing investment back into the US, especially manufacturing. That’s why China and SE Asia were so hard hit. It’s where the outsourced plants are.

    As for the aghast economists, yeah don’t care what they say.

19. Greenspan and bernanke persuaded mr that ron might have a point about the Fed on other matter maybe less so

20. @Bill:As for the aghast economists, yeah don’t care what they say.

    I would care more if they weren’t prostitutes who said what they were told to say; if they didn’t tell us that Democrat tariffs are fine and dandy and create jobs and consumers will never notice.

    @David Clayton:Nikita’s I think everyone arguing for tariffs is wrong. Free markets have made countries wealthy. Tariffs are just another big government tax.

    That’s exactly how I feel about them. Over and above that I believe in a moral case for free trade. But the people who are frightening you about Trump’s tariffs today do not believe it themselves, because they turn on a dime and say the opposite when it benefits them to do so.

    Incidentally you need to find someone more recently relevant than Ron Paul if you’re expecting any traction by name-dropping, and you seemed to have badly misjudged the type of audience that was ever receptive to Ron Paul even when he was relevant.

21. David Clayton:

    As I have written time and again, tariffs make me uneasy but I don’t know what their net effect will be. I’ve read plenty from each side, and I have no sense of which side is correct. They each make some good points, but in general in the past I’ve not been impressed by the ability of financial “experts” to make predictions about anything.

    But if you’re asking specifically about Ron Paul, in general I find myself unimpressed with him and have disagreed with him many times in the past. I have found that Trump is not 100% on his predictions – who is? – but he’s often been surprisingly correct.

22. The never-Trumpers at National Review and some of the offshoot neocon never-Trump sites would be happy to have you, David Clayton.

    I think free trade is a wonderful idea, and like so many theories, in practice it’s got a lot of problems. For trading partners operating entirely in good faith and strictly adhering to the principle, sure, it’s good.

    I am having a hard time viewing the idea that US tariffs are just like the Russian invasion of Ukraine as “good faith.”

    I’m also having a hard time taking European wailing seriously, since Europe has been taking advantage of US taxpayers for the entire duration of my life (born four years after V-E Day).

23. global markets and national economies are not the same as a New York real estate business
    ==
    This is a trivial remark.
    ==
    Trump was happy to see many of his businesses go bankrupt. Not a great way to run a country.
    ==
    The Trump Organization was an equity investor in several businesses which applied for re-organizations. Most of the applications involved the same set of casino properties in Atlantic City. No, he was not ‘happy’ to see that.
    ==
    Try saying something that is not misleading.

24. Greenspan and bernanke persuaded mr that ron might have a point about the Fed on other matter maybe less so
    ==
    No, we don’t benefit from a gold standard.

25. Europe’s been ticked off at the US for any and every reason imaginable ever since those “colonists” became successful enough to make Europe as a whole a second-class entity. This is nothing new; just another excuse.

    As I recall history, this country paid its way with tariffs until taxes and the Fed took over and gained control. Will tariffs work in today’s world? Maybe, maybe not … but the way we’ve been going isn’t working well. Lost too much capability on outsourcing in the 80s/90s, now it’s time to pay the piper and bring back what we once had. Or at least try.

    (And it was Trump or Biden. A successful business man or a senile pedophile. I’m not going to judge Trump’s efforts less than 3 months into his administration.)

    Grumble, grumble. Rant, rant.
    🙂

26. There’s pros and cons to a gold standard definitely; the world didn’t move off it for no reason, and if being on it was such a slam dunk then some country would have gone back on and kicked everyone’s ass and more would have followed suit.

    One of the cons being that your economic growth is limited to mine output or else you have deflation, which will limit it for you.

27. Europe angry at Trump! That’s it life has no more reasons for me to partake of it. “If you look for me tomorrow you will find a grave man”!

28. Europe has been looking down its collective nose at the US for a very long time.

    They could afford to, for obvious reasons.
    They have fantastic old buildings. As with everything else, the ultimate basis of…everything…is agricultural surplus. Imagine what had to be sweated out of the peasants not much beyond the Neolithic to pay decades if not centuries of workers to haul and lift and chip stone.

    I wonder how much of the upset in Europe is simply finding out they don’t call the tune as they thought they did.

29. How much oil does the world pump? One would think this is a eminently countable figure, and yet there is no agreement among experts what this number actually is, and a wide range of estimates – hence great uncertainty on forecasts.

    It seems to me that the same is true of tariffs. Trump Bad !! That’s always the first volley. But if all tariffs are ‘bad’, then what is the proper response to tariffs that have existed in place at American expense, for decades? I’ve been trying to understand a bit more about Trump’s complicated formulation. I think the only way this will become clear is via argument, rhetoric, and eventual action by various economies as they work their estimates – and their uncertainties – in give & take. Already quite a few countries have signaled their willingness to negotiate.

    This is part of an economic re-set. I think Trump aims to wean the economies of the world, especially our allies, off the long-standing teat of American aid in one form or another, in the post WWII world. As many have noted before, the over-weaning government-service economies of the European nations is at least because they could afford to provide these service *for free* because their economies (a) had high tax rates and (b) were not encumbered by defense spending on the scale the US offered – *for free*.

    Trump, as usual, disrupts. But I expect order to return eventually – and a better deal for the US economic interests. And, hopefully more clarity on what impact these historical ‘trade arrangements’ have actually had on our economic health, and economic growth.

30. • 100% agree with folks who point out that true Free Trade is not a reality for much of the trade that occurs today – see 2025 National Trade Estimate (NTE).

    • For me Free Trade is not a desirable outcome, and the critical trade factor is not tariffs, barriers, etc. – see Conventional Wisdom.

    • The critical trade factor is the desirability of the marketplace – see “location”.

    • Access to the USA market, possibly the most desirable “location” in the world, is an asset that should be monetized ^^ – see 10% baseline tariff.

    • Lastly, It is no surprise to me that a real estate billionaire understands the importance of location – see 5th Avenue, Central Park, etc.

    ^^ = 100% expect other USA assets – tangible and intangible – to be monetized and new income streams to be developed – just listen to Burgum-Interior, Lutnick-Commerce & Bessent-Treasury

31. Interesting framing neo. I couldn’t care less what Europeans think of tariffs. The most important audience are American voters.

    Just because the conventional wisdom has been wrong about so many big things in the past decade or so doesn’t mean that it is wrong about everything. This really looks like the scenario where the conventional wisdom about free trade may have really been right. And Trump has wagered his whole presidency and the future of his movement on it. Lovely.

    At a minimum, I think that free trade definitely has trade-offs and definitely creates losers. However, I strongly suspect that (i) the winners of free trade greatly outnumber the losers; and (ii) most of the winners from free trade don’t perceive how much it benefits them.

    Another angle that hasn’t been addressed here. Allowing the President impose tariffs of this magnitude on an ideological flight of fancy is totally bonkers. Congress has the power to levy taxes, not the president. The enabling statutes are broad, but I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that not a single member of Congress members who voted to give the president discretion over tariffs thought they were doing this. I wouldn’t be shocked if SCOTUS or Congress shut this down.

32. You are a complete ignoramus, Clayton, or else just a barefaced liar. No other possibilities. The other countries do not practice “free trade”.

33. If there were up/down votes here Aggie at 9:01pm would get a big upvote from me.

34. ”…a lot of the trade ‘understandings’ between the US and Europe, as well as between the US and Japan, date back to the end of World War Two, when those economies were shattered. To keep them out of the Communist sphere, America allowed Europe and Japan to ‘protect’ their domestic industries with tariffs while lowering our own trade barriers to them. It worked. Europe and Japan are major players in the world markets.”

    This! During the Cold War we allowed this unequal relationship because it benefited both sides. It quickly turned a large block of first-world people from an economic liability (think “Marshall Plan”) to a geopolitical asset. German machine tools, Japanese electronics, and French aerospace all contributed greatly to the fight against the Soviet Union. What’s remarkable is that this unbalanced relationship continued for nearly forty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

    ”…the US Trade Representative explained that Trump’s sweeping ‘reciprocal tariffs’ were calculated using a complex formula that aims to ‘balance bilateral trade deficits’ between the US and its trading partners.”

    If that’s the goal then it’s bound to fail. There is no way the American economy and the European economies can balance like that. The demographics won’t allow it.

    From an economic perspective people tend to go through three phases in their adult lives. From about age 20 to 45 or so people are net consumers in the economic sense. They are buying their first houses, upsizing those houses as the kids come and the parents get promoted, buying cars, appliances, furniture, etc, and then sending their kids off to college. All this while their incomes are the lowest of their careers.

    Then from about 40 to 65 or so the consumption slows way down. The kids move out of the house, the house is downsized, parents stop buying minivans every five years because they’re not ferrying kids all over town everyday, etc. But the parents are still in the workforce and are, in fact, in the most economically productive period of their lives. They have the highest skills and experience, the highest incomes, and they’re investing large sums in preparation for retirement.

    After 65 people retire and convert their investments to cash, annuities, and some bonds. They also start spending down their assets. All of this reduces the level of investment in the economy.

    The median age in America is still in the 30s, and as a result America still has a consumption-driven economy. That’s not true in Europe. The median age in Europe as a whole is in the mid 40s, and in Spain, Italy, and Germany (and Japan) it’s in the late 40s. They still have a sizable workforce and investment but not a sizable consumption. As a result the European economy is investment- and export-driven. They have the cash and the workforce to build stuff but not enough consumers to consume it, so they have to export the excess.

    There’s no way to balance those two economies the way Trump seems to want to. He can make the tariffs more “fair”, but that’s not going to balance the trade that occurs. The only way to force a balance in trade like that is to set trade at zero.

35. Five years after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre businesses started flocking to China, and not just IBM and DuPont. One fellow who owned a 100 employee dental handpiece manufacturing business near my business wrote about attending a DenTech conference in Shanghai in 1994. This is part of what he said in a local newspaper interview on September24, 1994:

    “China is a fascinating, fascinating opportunity. It feels like you are glimpsing the emerging industrial power of the future. Airplanes are full of Japanese, Americans, and Europeans every day who have come to investigate China or are already pursuing business interests there.”

    He said of Shanghai “it’s a very metropolitan city of 14 million with a business friendly outlook, but very different from the American concept with political opinion one-sided with signs hanging everywhere praising the communist leaders…and with virtually no single-family residential housing, apartments are everywhere, with government subsidized leases for Chinese people running about $1.50 a month. Likewise, wages are extremely low with the average about $30 a month.”

    “Money seems plentiful with their government’s drive for jobs and investment oiling the financial machine. Joint ventures with the Chinese government skirt restriction and high costs that bog down importers. Duty runs 12 percent and sales tax 20 to 30 percent. The government realizes its’ better to leapfrog to state of the art, rather than to try to develop it itself.”

    “While there he got a chance to tour a dental manufacturing plant, including a division that made handpieces similar to his. The latter he called backward because it lacked capitalization and any high-tech equipment, using brass instead of stainless steel. Also, rust was abundant. He said, it’s about 25-30 years backwards.”

    “Just a few months after his visit, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and a planeload of American executives followed in an effort to encourage more investment in China. They stopped in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.”

    After this man’s glowing account, I wrote him a letter, one businessman to another. I told him that what the Chinese wanted was not so much his investment, but his knowledge and expertise. Their “leapfrog” was intellectual theft. And I recounted Tiananmen Square, telling him that if he went there he would be in business with communist murderers who aborted baby girls, killed protesters and harvested their organs, and that the current government was little different that Mao’s which had starved and butchered millions and millions of people.

    Trump’s tariffs are not really aimed at our allies. They are an attempt to hinder the outflow of technology, to stop our turncoat, greedy bastard business executives from selling us out. This is not really about Canada, Mexico, or Europe. It’s about China.

36. Neo “As I have written time and again, tariffs make me uneasy but I don’t know what their net effect will be.”

    We are all about to find out. Here is a list of things that may well happen and here’s hoping they don’t.

    1. Global, and US inflation will rise.

    2. Global, and US growth will fall.

    3. Global, and US unemployment will rise.

    It will be easy to see what happens in the next few months.

    Of course free markets are imperfect and many countries place artificial limitations on trade but the alternative is going to be much worse. Historically protectionism, mercantilism and tariffs do not make the dynamic growth economies that we have seen in the last 80 Years.

37. I don’t think anyone knows where this is going.

    No, but many of the usual suspects are whining, fear mongering and throwing tantrums like there’s no tomorrow.

    And that’s an EXCELLENT sign.

38. BTW, that Batya Unger-Sargon article (linked to above) packs quite a punch…and is titled:

    “Former TDS Survivor Goes on Epic Rant About Tariffs on ‘Piers Morgan,’ Leaves Lefties Shellshocked”—
    https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2025/04/03/former-tds-survivor-goes-on-epic-rant-about-tariffs-on-piers-morgan-leaves-lefties-shellshocked-n2187441?utm_source=rsafternoonbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

39. Bumping David Foster’s link from the open thread today.
    I recommend the comments also.
    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/73683.html

40. Perusing the Salem media group (Townhall, RedState, PJMedia) I found 8 posts that support Trump’s tariffs in various ways.
    In case someone is looking for talking points to use on their freaked out family and friends.
    One per outlet so as not to strain the link monitor.

    https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/04/02/trump-has-been-telling-it-to-us-straight-for-decades-n4938545?state=

    https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2025/04/03/general-motors-responds-to-trumps-tariffs-in-a-way-that-will-make-indiana-very-happy-n2187483

    https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2025/04/03/why-we-should-be-very-angry-about-the-tariffs-and-why-trump-is-right-again-n2654937

    He’s referring to the tariffs placed on American products by other countries.

41. A little education helps. The dollar value of American manufacturing has never been higher as demonstrated by the St. Louis Fed. The US Chamber also reports that there are over 600,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs. My retirement accounts are heading south. As a former Economics major, this was entirely predictable to me.

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1azZr

42. MORE LINKS to discussion of Trump tariffs like AesopFan’s post.

    But before I do, Neo at 5:30 writes dismissively about a piece explaining “the rather dubious way the Trump administration gets its high figures for European protectionism.”

    But the European Union in Brussels would hardly exist without regulating banana size and shape and color, and that clothes dryers must be small and ineffective at drying!

    In fact, many barriers to freer trade o regulations — it’s what these French-style technocratic elites live for, like the expert Aristocracy they pretend to be. Thus, having lived enough in Europe, I am not dismissive of the high rates Trumps Team finds in EU nonfinancial trade barriers.

    In better news, soon after this deliberate period of chaos comes the tax spending bill (like expansion of tax cuts to poorer people and the middle class), and deregulation of the economy to increase productivity.

    BACK TO EVALUATING trump tariff policies. Few here have tried to address the greater contexts of tax policy of this huge change in the monetary system. From Bretton Woods, NH after the Second World War, to Nixon’s floating exchange rates — now we have a new kid in the block with Trump II.

    I think Dutch economist Dr Schasfoote (below) best explains it, and quite lucidly. And I think two aims are improved American security and lowering US interests rates to make the avalanche of Federal Debt due ($17billion!M!) for refinancing through 2026 more affordable. And Trump tariffs are intended to corral both.

    Also, poli sci prof Matt Goodwin on the global cultural and economic consequences.

    This, here are links this investor is sharing with interested friends: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Wins over Skeptical CNN Report
    (9m 3Apr25) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8WWvBEiFvE

    A political science Prof in the UK puts Trump-o-nomics into the bigger global socio-political context.
    The economic and cultural diversity that existed before hyper-globalism can soon re-assert diverse solutions to scarcity besides, ritually “off-shoring” the making and building of everything. (6m, 3Apr25) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fvHlr9oA_E

    “Donald Trump’s new tariffs are more than just economic policy—they’re a full-blown rebellion against the failed promises of globalisation.

    “For decades, elites told us deregulated markets, free trade, and open borders would lift everyone. But they gutted working-class communities across America, Britain, and Europe, outsourced jobs, crushed wages, and eroded national cohesion. This is the beginning of a new economic era—and Trump’s Liberation Day is just the start.” Hence, American reshoring of manufacturing. (Go long on robotics stocks, folks.)

    Investment advisor Peter Schiff says Trump is creating a market collapse. Yet Dr Ron Paul heralds this as the final demise of the fiat money system which has rewarded ruinous inflationary policies ever since Nixon, killing a beast corrupting state politics everywhere (eg, inflating away debt like Argentina has repeatedly done).
    WHO IS RIGHT?

    Dutch economist Dr Schasfoort lays out the historical and geopolitical realities driving the international monetary system to be reformed at this time.

    This lucid and long portion explains monetary history and outlines the three steps Trump tariff policy involved in Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephan Miran’s and Scott Bessent’s papers last November: market chaos, tariff reciprocity, followed by foreign nations payment to the U.S. for agreeable security insurance.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ts5wJ6OfzA
    (24m, 3Apr25) But Schasfoort omits mentioning the enormous value that lowering the dollar exchange rate with foreign currency will achieve. It will greatly help lower Federal debt refinancing costs, too: about half of all US Federal debt ($17 billion) must be refinanced in the next 18-24 months.

    The final 5 minutes give us his speculations of possible hitches in this plan. (This new video has generated an impressive amount of argument over Schasfoort and Trump’s knowledge. SEE COMMENTS at the link if interested. It is very impressive.)

    Finally, the entrepreneur Silicon Valley billionaires on the “All-In Podcast” discuss the existential need for Trump tariffs.

    SEE 28m and especially note Chamath’s extended commentary at 30m+. He discovers a 1987 interview with Trump with Larry King Live, where Trump says why tariffs matter. Trump has been consistent about tariff policy for many decades.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iazo7g40VbQ&t=3856s
    In their view, the riskiness and reward is high. But the assembled Team Trump to achieve it is the best and most competent around.

43. A longer defense and explanation of Trump tariffs by Justin Nomad at the British Lotus Eaters.

    Justin says every commentary about Trump tariffs gets the problem-solution being dealt with WRONG — the key problem is that virtually EVERYTHING is imported. This must be reversed and rebalanced.

    Extended reply to Mike Pence’ widely circulated Trump tariff critique (You can skip to 18 or 20m+). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwgpmNc7oak
    (3Apr25, 32m)

44. TJ – Even if you look at it that way, there are going to be winners and losers. You can increase domestic production of goods, but there are going to be trade-offs. We can have more domestic manufacturing, but we’re going to pay for it with higher prices, slower economic growth, and the alienation of our allies as our actions slow their economic growth.

    No one voted for or consented to the trade off. Trump talks about tariffs and protectionism as unmitigated goods. They are not. There are significant costs, starting with bit hit that retirement accounts took yesterday.

45. As I said last night, this is about China. From CNBC this morning:

    “China’s Finance Ministry on Friday said it will impose a 34% tariff on all goods imported from the U.S. starting on April 10.
    The ministry criticized Washington’s decision to impose 34% of additional reciprocal levies on China — bringing total U.S. tariffs against the country to 54%…”

    China is the target. The other is distraction.
    Where did Sec. Hegseth just visit? What was that Chinese circling threat around Taiwan all about?

46. One thing I find very odd in this debate is how US citizens don’t recognise how economically powerful the US is a result of the global economy of the last 80 years.
    Look at average wages, GDP, savings or anything else you fancy and you will see a country with immense wealth.
    But nothing is for ever. Are you really going to to start manufacturing everything at home? With your average wages? When you just started booting out all the cheap migrant labour?
    And with your production costs who are going to sell to abroad? Certainly not the Chinese , EU, Africa, India, Latin America as they all have far cheaper costs than you – and are about to impose their own stupid import taxes.
    Or will you sell to each other? How much are you prepared to pay for jeans or an iPhone. And that’s before we start to look at all those tariff free US coffee farmers 🙂

47. David Clayton: FOAD

48. Thanks for the Gish Gallop Mr. Clayton. The answer to each of your question depends on granular features of the good in question.

49. My husband spent a career in manufacturing management. A lower labor rate is not necessarily the only factor. British manufacturing costs are actually higher than ours, as is the case in most of Europe. Properly managed, it’s cheaper to make product in New Jersey than in Mexico.

50. David Clayton:

    It is hard to take a Brit seriously about nearly anything after they have willingly imported East Asians hordes into their country for political expediency and destroyed their own culture.

    So once again, FOAD.

51. Numerous additional comments on my Tariff post from yesterday:

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/73683.html

52. The only economist I really listen to is Thomas Sowell. Economics is the dismal science, and most economists are very dismal indeed.

53. I must say that the Trump tariffs at the moment are not entirely reciprocal. If these are negotiating tools, fine. If this is the final configuration, not so much.

54. Kate – The “its just a negotiating position” rationale is pure cope. He’s negotiating with the whole world? For what? What demands has he made? What concessions would he accept? Israel just dropped their tariffs on US goods to zero, and they still got hit.

    Sometimes the simplest explanation really is correct. It sure as heck looks as though Trump is just a protectionist who believes, likely erroneously, that tariffs are going to be great for the US economy.

    Beyond that, I think he’s a madcap who happened to be right about a few big things, has been incredibly fortunate in his enemies, and now believes, erroneously, that he is some sort of invincible savant.

55. What I’ve gotten out of this whole situation is an appreciation for just how high the tariffs other countries have been placing on US products.

    I had no idea-60%, 90%, tarriffs, some even higher. Supposedly over 300% Canadian tariffs on U.S. products like butter and wood products.

56. “Trump, as usual, disrupts. But I expect order to return eventually – and a better deal for the US economic interests.” @Aggie

    • 100% agree.

    “But the assembled Team Trump to achieve it is the best and most competent around.” @TJ

    • 100% agree.

    • I am truly enjoying watching Trump and the amazing team ^^ he assembled not just run things incredibly well; but also implement big/ great ideas too (e.g., DOGE, MAHA, Sovereign Wealth Fund **).

    ^^ = Can’t think of a better cabinet in my lifetime – either party – and would not swap any of his 2nd term cabinet for someone from his 1st term cabinet – that includes Mnuchin-Treasury & Ross-Commerce – then you add Musk and Vance – Wow

    ** = I pitched a Sovereign Wealth Fund to my buddies when Trump was first elected – felt like Trump the CEO would get it – and Lutnick-Commerce, Bessent-Treasury & Burgum-Interior definitely get it

    “We can have more domestic manufacturing, but we’re going to pay for it with higher prices,…” @Bauxuite

    • This is a reminder that it is not just the Left that can have uncaring perspectives.

    • Trump was elected in 2016, 2020, and 2024 in part because those who can & do work with their hands recognize someone who genuinely cares about their well-being too.

    • And he was elected in part because many citizens recognize that it was not OK to destroy the industrial jobs & regions of this country – North, South, Midwest – just so we could save a few dollars on textiles, electronics, furniture, appliances, etc. or to have a little bit bigger stock portfolio.

    • Not wanting those jobs did not mean it was OK to deny others those jobs – to deny them their choice of “the pursuit of happiness” – and a large and prosperous “blue collar middle class” was a good thing for this entire country; which many citizens seem to not understand – see ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’.

    https://youtu.be/cOZ5T6bKbNo

57. The only economist I really listen to is Thomas Sowell. Economics is the dismal science, and most economists are very dismal indeed.
    ==
    Dr. Sowell at his most scholarly is an intellectual historian. He understands public controversies and explain them well. Vision of the Anointed is an excellent addition to the literature. His dissertation was on a question in the history of economic thought. He has not produced theoretical literature in economics per se, though he ran empirical studies at the Urban Institute.
    ==
    I don’t find economists dismal. People find Paul Krugman repellent, but that’s a function of having abandoned economic research for obnoxious and ill-considered polemics.

58. Global, and US inflation will rise.
    ==
    Inflation is a monetary phenomenon.

59. The numbers stated as tariffs by foreign countries on the chart Trump presented ARE NOT just the tariff rates; they are calculated by a simple formula based on the ratio of US exports to that country versus US imports from that country. The idea is that this also captures the effect of non-tariff barriers and currency factors.

    So if a country wants its tariffs from the US reduced, the formula is not going to change those tariffs…whatever changes that country implements…until the changes show up materially in the trade balances. EXCEPT that what I think is really going to happen is that if a country shows enough signs of change in the right direction, Trump will do the thing he likes best and negotiate a deal with them.

60. The history of the last century is that every time a Republican congress raised tariffs they were routed in the next election. Trump is determined to cause the Democrats to rise from the dead.

61. He has not produced theoretical literature in economics per se

    What does “per se” entail in this context?

62. Yes, he’s negotiating with the entire world for trading positions that benefit the US and its taxpayers. We have been used as a world piggy bank for my entire lifetime.

63. Europe is angry at Trump.

    Finally! An argument for tariffs I can get behind.

64. What does “per se” entail in this context?
    ==
    Models which can be elucidated with formulae or graphical reasoning.

65. Kate – Nearly 10% of American market capitalization has vaporized in less than 2 days. That’s some mighty strong Kool-Aid.

66. so we have to conclude those stocks were overvalued, which considering a decade of free money, is plausible,

67. miguel cervantes – I think you would rationalize absolutely anything that Trump did.

    Kool-Aid indeed.

68. i use logic, show me the actual impact of these tariffs that appeared two days ago, now if this had happened after one quarter, then I would say there was certainly price resistance, but you can’t show me this was true, so I figure this is the result of the bubble, that has been propped up for four eight twelve years,

69. I think you would rationalize absolutely anything that Trump did.
    ==
    I think you should check historical p/e ratios.

70. If Harris had been elected and produced a policy this damaging to the stock markets I think the reaction on here would be different.
    Until recently only the mad left or enemies of the west cheered the collapse of the markets. Only they called for an end to the system of ever expanding global trade that has made the USA, and many others, wealthier over the last 80 years.
    That is the point all these fans of tariffs just don’t get. To put it in the most basic economics terms we are not fighting for a fixed amount of cake but to get a good percentage of an expanding cake that others also benefit from.
    The US has long had around 25% of global GDP but the value of that in real terms – adjusted for inflation – has risen dramatically, even over just the last 25 years.
    You have high wages, low unemployment, fairly low inflation and decent productivity.

    You will not appreciate this until the cake starts shrinking which is what tariffs will do.

71. How come tariffs are OK for the countries that import our goods, but it’s bad soup if someone says nope, the party’s over?
    It’s obvious to me that tariffs are being used as a negotiation tool. America is in a position of power given the trade deficits we suffer.
    Ignore the naysayers, they want nothing more than people getting weak knees about Trump.
    Free trade is nothing more than a fairy tale that could never work except in small samples. Is coffee free traded or fair traded?

72. Other Chuck and om, don’t go so easy on Clayton.

73. Bauxite: “No one voted for or consented to the trade off”

    No one voted for or consented to 40 years of offshoring that took away jobs from millions of hard-working Americans. In case you hadn’t noticed, that is exactly why Trump has been the dominant political figure of the past decade. Though even if you *had* noticed you probably still wouldn’t have figured it out and instead attributed it to reality show antics and deplorable racists.

74. If Harris had been elected and produced a policy this damaging to the stock markets I think the reaction on here would be different.
    ==
    It might have been.
    ==
    Those trading on capital markets have had a negative reaction to the policy (although, please note, that’s not the only fragment of information which influences capital markets). Financial markets at any one time will overestimate or underestimate future economic performance. The assembled here are willing to reserve judgment because they are not sure how this is going to play out over time. (You and Bauxite are striking poses, as usual).
    ==
    Occidental countries of consequence are facing crises right now and we do not know how this ends. The crises have been brought about by the fecklessness and criminality of the extant political establishment, not disruptors like Trump, Meloni, Le Pen, Farage, and Weidel. We win, there is a fighting change at social regeneration. You win, its more decay.

75. Oh

    https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/828483401069494272/1358031874550665226/image0.jpg?ex=67f25d3d&is=67f10bbd&hm=54003adc8b2a91020f96fd00f6a0ebb8e2302e769ed7fc474bf7a1da3b0a4ece

76. Art Deco – Farage ha. I’ve seen him speak a few times and he is very impressive. Then watch him run things. My he is bad. His own party is falling apart because of him and the Brexit he fought so assiduously for has been a disaster.

    I suspect this tariffs rubbish may well be your Brexit. Enjoy.

77. I know you dont like free people mr clayton the lockdowns the confiscation of farmers the newspeak against citizens in favor of the criminals and the terrorists you have made that clear

78. Miguel Cervantes – I am arguing for free markets while you are supporting big government import taxes.

79. I would not like to say you are lying about the disputes in the Reform Party see Rupert Lowe over Farage, a new rising faction is likely to have friction,

    tariffs are not my preference, but neither is unilateral disarmament

80. David Clayton:

    How does it feel to be the “nail” now that Miguel has “hammered” you?

    What actually is the use of such “conservatives” in Britain? And should we care?

81. I suspect this tariffs rubbish may well be your Brexit. Enjoy.
    ==
    Brexit was an excellent idea which should be followed by the rest of Europe. It’s helpful when your political class does not attempt to sabotage it.
    ==
    As for public policy in Britain, your political class has been at war with the British public. The Conservative Party held most of the ministries for 13 years and a secure majority in the Commons for about half that time. What they failed to accomplish include the following:
    ==
    A. A salutary revision of immigration policy. That would mean the following: a limit on the annual issuance of settler’s visas to about 55,000; a target value for the population of temporary residents set at about 300,000; allowing temporary residency permits only to accredited employees of foreign governments, authentic refugees, students, teachers, and dependents of those in these categories; a moratorium on the issuance of educational visas until the population of temporary residents falls below the target value; summary denial of refugee status to anyone who has passed through other countries on their way to Britain; detention (or, absent capacity, ankle monitoring) of all applicants for refugee status (and their dependents) until their case is adjudicated; immediate execution of deportation orders; a requirement that one pass a language proficiency test before one can enter the queue for a settler’s visa or an educational visa (dependents under 14 excepted); requiring schools which wish to admit or hire foreigners to purchase a visa for them at a multiple-price auction; conditioning foreigners’ eligibility for publicly-financed common provision on the work credit accumulated by oneself and one’s head of household; making preventive detention (with a schedule of indemnities for those whose cases are not processed to a conviction or whose time in detention exceeds the eventual sentence) the order of the day for any foreigner accused of a crime; denial of parole for foreigners convicted of crimes in lieu of a clipped sentence of imprisonment followed by suspension of one’s right of residency followed by immediate deportation on release; limiting naturalization to those who had spent the majority of their natural life in Britain living within the law; defining the civil status of someone born in Britain and its dependencies as that of its mother or (if they be of legitimate birth and the father has a preferred status) as that of the father.
    ==
    B. A restoration of freedoms. That would mean limiting restriction on the freedom to speak and publish to proscriptions on disorderly conduct, stalking and harassment of private citizens, fraud, criminal solicitation, incitement of riot, enforcement of civil defamation judgments, contempt of court citations, obstruction of public employees at work (by such things as filing false police reports or invading their offices and making noise), misappropriation of confidential information, unruly behavior in schools, and trade in obscene material. That would mean allowing any citizen over 25 to keep and bear arms absent a criminal conviction, civil commitment order, or guardianship. That would mean at a minimum castle doctrine in assessing the right of self-defense. That would mean freedom-of-contract and freedom-of-association as the default setting, with a modest run of exceptions (in re services provided by natural monopolies, provisions in collective bargaining agreements, services provided to travelers, and emergency situations).
    ==
    C. A restoration of criminal justice. That means an end to judicial discretion over sentencing in criminal cases, the use of incarceration or corporal punishment as the primary penalty in all offenses defined in the penal code; assessing juveniles accused of offenses in regular courts, limiting the use of probation to convicts under 25, wherein it would be a partial substitution for incarceration or corporal punishment; day detention in lieu of school for incorrigible youths; an expansion of prison and jail capacity to about 560,000; thoroughly segregating prisons and jails by sex, by a history of violent offenses, and by age segment; and a radical reduction in amenities for convicts. (Also, a restoration of statutes of limitations).
    ==
    D. Scraping sectoral preference out of the tax code and eliminating grant distribution to corporate bodies (with a discrete set of exceptions).
    ==
    E. Limiting state-owned enterprises and agencies performing what could be fee-for-service tasks to the central bank, the stationary office, BBC World Service, various natural monopolies, hospitals, clinics, schools, and transit hubs. Everything else is sold off, liquidated, or shut down.
    ==
    F. Restoration of the housing market. That means auctioning off public housing, staged elimination of rent control, elimination of greenbelts, streamlined procedures for implementing evictions, and, again, freedom of contract.
    ==
    G. Limiting publicly-financed common provision to custodial care for youths and incompetents; to sectoral subsidies in the realm of medical care, long-term care, schooling, legal services, and shipping-and-transportation; to cash transfers and indemnities for the elderly, the disabled, the injured, the interstitially unemployed; and to a tax rebate program which provides supplementary income for the elderly and disabled and matching funds for earned income among the rest of the population.
    ==
    H. Instituting cohort-specific retirement ages so that the ratio of beneficiaries to workers bounces around a constant.
    ==
    I. Restructuring the public finance of medical care and long term care, with the eventual goal of instituting public insurance coverage which kicks in over a deductible and is limited in reimbursements to a fixed percentage of total personal income flow. Providers would generally be organized into philanthropic corporations or guild enterprises, with the public sector operating a residue.
    ==
    J. Converting most higher education properties into second-chance high schools, occupational institutes which provide streamlined training courses, and preparatory institutes which offer courses in academic subjects, business, and technology so that one might tackle the curriculum of the occupational institutes or universities.
    ==
    K. Cutting the number of universities and satellite university colleges to about three-dozen, limiting their total enrollment to about 400,000; replacing the three-year academic degree with a set of one-year, two-year, and three-year degrees per the preference of the student and the institution; and limiting university-based professional schools to engineering, allied professions of engineering, medicine, allied professions of medicine, law, clinical psychology, veterinary medicine, and agronomy.
    ==
    L. Kicking Tony’s cronies out of the House of Lords and converting it into a body of modest size (say 115 persons) composed largely of volunteers among the hereditary peers picked out of a hat (from which the monarch could make discretionary exclusions) supplemented with the monarch’s appointments from short lists of life peers submitted by the PM and the opposition leaders. While we’re at it, limiting honors to those selected by the monarch advised by his household staff, limiting life peerages to baronies, and restoring the monarch’s discretion over the Crown Estate.
    ==
    But, yeah, Farage is the problem. Putz.

82. Art Deco – I probably agree with at least half the stuff on your list tbh I lost interest after a while as your AI gets a bit dull.
    We are discussing Trump’s tariffs.
    Brexit was a mistake so are the tariffs and Farage is a berk. And you need to practice debating issues with people without throwing insults at them.

83. Brexit was a mistake so are the tariffs and Farage is a berk. And you need to practice debating issues with people without throwing insults at them.
    ==
    I’ve never used AI and am not curious about it.
    ==
    No, Brexit was not a mistake, you’re just devoted to bad things like the Brussels apparat and Blofeld in Davos. You brought up Brexit. You’re a defender of the British establishment who get nothing salutary accomplished. I gave you a list of things they never did, some of them which should have been enacted the moment Nick Clegg’s crew left the cabinet. That doesn’t bother you. Farage bothers you and Trump bothers you. Because you’re devoted to bad things.
    ==
    The only ‘insult’ directed at you was ‘putz’. Butch up, buddy.

84. I’m reading a lot of fanta-history, here: “poor USA mistreated by Europe and the rest of the world” is a bit egregious – the USA has imposed or tried to impose itself everywhere, very often for the mutual good, sometimes not. Some honesty would be appreciated.

    Trump, as I understand it, wants to break the globalization system, where lobbies and companies make big money while production leaves the USA (and the West in general) for cheap-labor countries: this impoverished both the USA and Europe, but not the international upper class, whose typical member had no problem buying a magnificent villa on the lake of Como, while killing the jobs in the same country (mine, for instance).

    For that fight, Trump has all my support and I’m ready to bear a dose of turmoil in order to change.

    At the same time, his justification (tariffs) for that action does not make sense, and the reactions are easily predictable, especially from those who fear his revolutionary plan to get rid of the “deep-state/globalization” at any level, nationally and internationally (again, all my support for that). – obviously, these people are fomenting fear as much as they can.

    The in-your-face style Trump chose to adopt – which I often find unnecessary, to say the least – is isolating him even from those forces abroad who were expecting him to help fight the Big Brother. Giorgia Meloni here is doing miracles: she has to behave within the EU rules, because the left is only waiting for an excuse to get rid of her “Romanian style”, and at the same time she strives to keep the door open for Trump against the waves of hysterical propaganda.
    In Canada, Poilievre was forced to assume a position antithetical to Trump, and the same is happening in other countries.

    Maybe Trump does not care about the rest of the world, or maybe his strategy is the right one and I’m worried for nothing, but there’s a lot to be worried now in Europe.

85. Yes, there’s a great deal to be worried about right now.

86. Paolo, I have long objected to the US Sate Department’s policy of trying to impose the worst aspects of modern America on the rest of the world. It was cultural imperialism, and I hope it is ending with the Trump administration.

    If Trump will deal on tariffs with countries who are willing to work with us, then this should all settle down. I hope so.

87. See Bill Ackman, here. https://x.com/BillAckman/status/1908329277033979993 (As posted on today’s open thread.)

88. Basically, offshoring benefits those whose jobs are *not* offshore-able at the expense of those whose jobs *are* offshore-able. A US public school teacher, for example, may not be able to afford a villa on Lake Como, but benefits from cheaper products produced by lower-cost labor. Same for a programmer or a financial analyst in a typical American corporation.

    There are probably now more Americans in non-offshore-able jobs than those who *are* in offshore-able jobs….this makes me worried about the midterm elections.

89. In Canada, Poilievre was forced to assume a position antithetical to Trump, and the same is happening in other countries.
    ==
    Fine.
    ==
    Canada has issues far more severe than those posed by Trump, and addressing these have to be PP’s priority. If for appearances sake he has to flip DJT the bird, he should do it.

90. Hello Kate, glad to hear from you, I hope you’re doing well.

    “Cultural imperialism” is inevitable when there’s a dominant nation, and I see the influence of American culture as mainly beneficial – until your universities got the worst of continental philosophy and cooked it in massive fashion, as only Americans can do.
    But I was talking about economic imperialism, the kind which flies over people lives as if they were peripheral details.

    I came to believe there is no certainty in economics, in particular: there is no deterministic law dictating what will happen as a consequence of a particular action. Classical liberalism distillates some general wisdom, but each time it seems to me that the eventual success has much to do with the general “goodness” of the culture that underlies it.
    So, freedom in entrepreneurial activities is incredibly good when it’s a living relationship between interested, honest and mutually respectful people, no matter what the social status is, but sharing common values; at the same time the culture has to be, or strive for, truth and objectivity, which require humility and exercise in competence.
    Common sense stuff, I know.
    I’m worried because the culture is a horrible mess, even in my Catholic Church.
    In Trump I see good principles in action, which gives me hope and I pray for his success because so much is at stake – but it’s messy and chaotic, truly a treasure in frail hands. But often God save us this way.

91. David Foster, if they are unwilling to sacrifice for their fellow Americans they shouldn’t be surprised when the feeling is returned. The breakout of AI and robots is going to upend the whole world.

    Around 1993, I was asked to do a quick evaluation of this new thing, the Mosaic web browser and the web and make a recommendation on allowing its use without VP approval. I played with it for about an hour and then told my boss on my way to lunch that we should allow it as it was going to “change the face of Arrakis”. I had no freaking clue how big a thing it was. I got my first private internet account shortly there after. There were fewer than 100 websites at that time.

92. “Cultural imperialism” is inevitable when there’s a dominant nation
    ==
    No it isn’t. There’s a reason people sometimes refer to Foreign Service Officers as ‘cookie-pushers’ . There’s all kinds of encouragement from above and from the kultursmog to behave this way. They need to be told they are under observation and it’s stop or find some other line of work.

93. The problem is similar to regulatory capture diplomats and spies end up more attentive if not loyal to the assigned nations than their own

    Example richard dalton of the foreign office and the late ray close of the company many of them retire to sinecures lobbying for similar interests

    In the higher levels of the bureaucracy the revolving door of lobbyists that are responsive to foreign interests over their own even when they get back in power

    The press has a certain tunnel vision about this see the podestas and greg craig and lanny davis vs manafort lobbying for the same country (ukraine) one get the hammer one get the comfy chair. In the uk there is always one black hat like say michael ashcroft vs others who are not given a hat say mandelson an australian ambassador like say alexander downer who holds the favor of the dragon or stefan halper the latter were enablers of the russian scam

    The policy imputs favor one side over another and not the side of native industries

94. Hello, Paolo, I am doing well, and I hope you are also.

    Economics is messy, primarily because it’s about dealings among people. Economists use mathematical models although it’s not an exact science. Free trade, for instance, is a lovely idea, and in theory it produces the best results for the largest numbers of people — but, alas, not all the trading partners act in good faith.

95. Bottom line, Europe has a deplorable attitude toward a country that has saved their asses, at least twice.

96. In 2019, US GDP was higher than it had ever been, and the highest of any country in history.
    The WaPo listed this claim as false, but in measuring an economy, absolute GDP (or similar GNP), is the comparison metric used.
    Not growth, tho the dishonest WaPo experts claimed Trump was lying due to growth, without noting GDP.

    The experts who have lied about Trump should be disregarded, but won’t be.

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