Tweet [1]
That the U.S. is open to the world’s plenty is the surest sign that the American worker is not being taken advantage of. Stating the obvious, the global competition for the paycheck of the American worker is the surest sign that Americans are getting the best deal of all. What imperils all this is Trump’s much vaunted “dealmaking,” not the status quo.
The administration’s worldview is that trade agreements, unfair trade, outsourcing, and trade deficits have caused massive job losses in the U.S. economy, especially in the manufacturing sector. Trade advisor Peter Navarro even claims that passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement 25 years ago and the rise of China have created “hell for American workers and hell for the American manufacturers.” [4]
Some hell. According to this morning’s Establishment Survey report, another 223,000 jobs were added to U.S. payrolls in May, including 18,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector. According to the separate Household Survey, the civilian unemployment rate dropped to 3.8 percent, a level not seen since the frothy peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000.
Personally, I think it is absurd to assume that Trump’s real intention is to get us to a new equilibrium with lower tariffs all around the world. He does not understand the value of free trade and his closest adviser on this issue is an ardent protectionist. Trump’s negotiation experience is all in zero-sum games where he is trying to extract the most of a fixed pie for himself, not in trying to craft win-win solutions across multiple parties.
A cure for our health-care ills [7].
Here’s Scott Sumner on neoliberalism [8].
Arnold Kling briefly argues that higher education in the U.S. today likely impairs economic mobility [9].