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Notes -
Trump tariffs McDonald's:
BBC article for a more detailed overview.
Highlights or lowlights include:
I'm not an economist, but I don't think it's a good idea to throw out tariffs with such clear absence of rigor. The only saving grace is that Trump is fickle, so if enough people yell at him from his in-group, he might pivot in a week. If not, bloody hell.
You know, we were just talking a few posts downthread about how the "experts" are willing to blatantly lie in order to advance their ideological agenda.
We have been told repeatedly for years by the experts that making any sort of adjustment, pushing any buttons on the control panel at all, to the global trade system would lead to complete economic collapse, the rise of fascist dictators, the end of civilization, and in general all manner of untold horrors.
But why should we believe the experts? We know they're ideologically motivated liars. So, fuck it. Let's just start pushing buttons. Smash away and let's see what happens. If for no other reason to prove that you can do something different, alternatives are possible, even if you may indeed get burned.
While I am sure that economists are just as biased as the practitioners of any soft "science", I do think that quite a number of them actually lean libertarian, not woke. Historically, economies which broadly embraced free trade fared better than countries which mostly rejected it.
But sure, just try to make the US build their own supply chains for everything. It will also hurt the rest of the world, but it will hurt you a lot worse.
See, the key word you used that needs some unpacking is economies. Do all players in the economy benefit equally from free trade? Certainly not! That’s the whole point of Trump raising tariffs, and why he had an autoworker introduce him at yesterday’s speech. Blue collar labor has fared poorly since the 1990s when NAFTA really accelerated free trade in the United States. Trump is the first President in my lifetime who actually cares about unskilled American laborers. It’s why the head of the Teamsters spoke at the RNC last year.
I don’t buy the idea that tariffs are a net negative for everyone in an economy. Sure, there’s inefficiencies in domestic production of certain goods. But man shall not live by bread alone. I thought people cared about equity? I guess not when it impacts the price of cheap imports from China or Mexico. Shows how little the PMC class actually cares about Joe Blue Sixpack.
It’s true that not everyone benefits equally. But your analysis isn’t that good. Using the auto industry as an example, net jobs are not that different pre- and post-NAFTA. Michigan took a big hit but a significant part of that was that other states have/adopted right to work laws. Michigan’s loss was Kentucky’s gain. What’s the moral calculus on a blue collar job in the former versus the latter?
Also you did not mention automation. Our industrial output has recovered from COVID lockdowns and is back up around all-time highs. The headwinds Joe Sixpack is fighting can’t be fixed by tariffs, and he’s gonna eat the pain of inflation, and inflation means the Fed isn’t going to cut rates.
Further, NAFTA and right to work laws were passed by legislatures. Businesses have more confidence in them than executive orders. On-shoring manufacturing takes years. Who is going to be president in 2029 and will they simply undo these tariffs via executive order if they’re even still in place? I have no idea. Neither do businesses who would need to invest huge sums in building new manufacturing capacity.
Saying that manufacturing jobs haven’t left America, and especially in the middle states is just plain stupid
I half agree. But not all jobs were lost, some were eliminated by technological gains. And some did leave, but to the south and west where right-to-work laws are in place.
Also, the world has changed. Many people have a halcyon reference point of mid-century America. Well, much of the developed world had been bombed to rubble, and our infrastructure was left intact.
Tariffs have costs. And they can’t move auto industry jobs from Kentucky back to Michigan. They can’t usher in an era of neo-Luddism and undo automation and other gains in technological efficiencies. And they can’t recreate a world where Asia and Europe have nowhere near our industrial capacity.
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