As I’ve said several times, I haven’t decided what I think about them and am willing to adopt a “wait and see” attitude. But in the meantime, they make me very uneasy.

Because it’s a topic of great interest, here’s a link to an article criticizing the tariffs. An excerpt:

President Trump imposed hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs on the countries of the world, that vary enormously from nation to nation. He calls them “reciprocal” tariffs, but they aren’t reciprocal at all. Trump increased tariffs even on friendly countries that had lower tariffs than we do, which is the very opposite of reciprocity. He imposed 10% tariffs even on countries that we have a trade surplus with, like Australia — which has fewer trade barriers than America does, and has some of the lowest tariffs on Earth.

In all this reading about tariffs and thinking about tariffs I became curious to know what another outside-the-box thinker, Javier Milei of Argentina, thinks of Trump’s tariffs. Here’s what I found:

Speaking at an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and resort in Florida, Milei delivered a brief speech as he received an award for his defence of free markets and conservative values.

Declaring he is ready to work side-by-side with the United States and Trump, Milei praised the US president and ruled out retaliatory measures.

“Argentina is going to move forward to readjust the regulations so that we meet the requirements of the reciprocal tariffs proposal developed” by Trump, Milei said, according to remarks briefed by his office. …

“As you can see, we make policies with actions, not mere words, and on that, we agree with President Trump: it is time to act, and we are committed to taking the necessary measures,” he added.

Milei said that he had given instructions to ensure Argentina complies with Washington’s remaining requirements and vowed to “resolve the asymmetries with the United States in a short period of time.”

Milei is an iconoclastic thinker who has done a lot of things in Argentina that had people very worried about the outcome, but the results have been generally good for that country, considering how things stood before he took office. I’m not saying that Milei and Trump are identical – they most definitely are not – but there are certain resonances.

More on Milei at Mar-a-Lago:

“Make Argentina Great Again!” Milei bellowed from the ballroom stage at at Mar-a-Lago late Thursday.

It would have been the fourth face-to-face meeting between the leaders since Mr. Trump’s election victory last November as President Milei, who has imposed a sweeping austerity program to fix Argentina’s long troubled economy, offers himself as one of Mr. Trump’s strongest allies in the global culture war against the “woke” left.

Also, here’s a link to quotes from Bill Ackman on the tariffs. Interesting.

So you can use this thread for more discussion of Trump’s tariffs.

The post Tariffs again appeared first on The New Neo.

Tuesday Milei addressed the UN General Assembly, which was fresh from its recent attack on Israel for having the temerity to defend itself. This is some of what he said

Milei focused on the 42-page “Pact for the Future” adopted by the UN on Sunday, which includes points promoting climate action, gender equality and regulation of artificial intelligence.

“Argentina will not back any policy that implies the restriction of individual freedoms or trade, nor the violation of the natural rights of individuals,” Milei said. “We invite all nations of the free world to join us, not only in opposing this pact, but in the creation of a new agenda for this noble institution: the freedom agenda.”

I wonder which nations still belong to the free world. There’s been a lot of attrition lately.

More here:

In his address to the General Assembly, Milei praised the organization’s original goal of pursuing world peace, but warned that it has mutated into a “multi-tentacled leviathan” that imposes a socialist agenda on its members. “It has been replaced by a supranational governance model of international bureaucrats who seek to impose a certain way of life on the citizens of the world. What is being discussed this week here in New York is nothing other than the deepening of this tragic course that this institution has adopted,” he stressed. …

…[Milei] explained why he is turning his back on the sustainable development agenda included in the Pact for the Future and the 2030 Agenda. He believes that they propose to “solve the problems of modernity with solutions that infringe on the sovereignty of nation states and violate people’s right to life, liberty, and property.” …

… “A toxic relationship has been promoted between global governance policies and international credit organizations, requiring the most neglected countries to commit resources they do not have to programs they do not need, turning them into perpetual debtors to promote the agenda of the global elites.”

The El Pais article from which I got those quotes is very down on Milei, pointing out his ostracization from the many other countries that are fine with the “global governance” program. To me, that’s not a mark against him.

Milei has steered Argentina on a pro-Israel course as well, and in his UN speech he added this on that matter and other flagrant hypocrisies committed by that organization:

“In this same house, we, that purports to defend human rights, we have also included bloody dictatorships in the Human Rights Council, including Cuba and Venezuela without reproach,” Milei said.

“In this same house, which purports to defend the rights of women, we’ve allowed on the CEDAW Committee countries that punish their women just for showing their skin,” Milei added.

“And this same house has voted against the State of Israel, which is the only country in the Middle East to defend liberal democracy.”

Milei is telling the emperor himself that the emperor is stark naked. But the emperor could not care less.

The post Milei of Argentina gives the UN a piece of his mind appeared first on The New Neo.