Wednesday, January 18, 2017

The Wall Street Journal on Trump's Trade Haters

The below from a Wall Street Journal editorial is all too accurate. We are about to be ruled by an Administration full of trade haters:
Financial markets since Donald Trump’s election have been floating on the promise of tax reform and deregulation, but a major question lingers over his economic agenda. To wit, the President-elect has assembled the most antitrade team of presidential policy advisers since the 1920s.

We wish we could say this is an exaggeration. But markets may be underestimating the fervor of Mr. Trump’s antitrade warriors and his determination to use tariffs and other import barriers against China in particular but even against friendly trading partners like Japan and Mexico.

Most modern Presidents, Democrat or Republican, have had a mix of free-traders and trade enforcers in their senior ranks. Mr. Trump’s economic team is striking for not having a single clear-throated free-trader anywhere in the senior economic team—even in the slots where trade promotion has long been part of the job description.

1 comment:

  1. ─ [A] major question lingers over [Trump's] economic agenda. To wit, the President-elect has assembled the most antitrade team of presidential policy advisers since the 1920s. ─

    I agree - this is NO exaggeration. Judging by his anti-trade rhetoric, his use of intellectually dishonest euphemisms like "smart trade", his threats, tacit or explicit, his posturing and his cabinet picks, it is clear this administration is on its way to rival Hoover's when it comes to trade and commerce.

    While reading previous comments from some of the readers, I gather that they agree there must be some sort of protectionism policies because other trade partners do not play fair in this game that is commerce. Except that commerce and trade are not a game; there's no such thing as 'trading partners' since countries do not trade - INDIVIDUAL HUMANS OF WILL do. And since only individual humans of will trade, then protectionist policies only serve to hinder these voluntary relationship, making the individuals who would otherwise benefit from them worse off, all because of petty jealousies.

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