My intrepid Mercatus Center colleague Veronique de Rugy exposes Trump’s incoherence on trade. A slice:
You see, one important fact that eludes our president is that the main way for foreign investors to acquire the dollars they invest in the United States is to sell us stuff. They send us goods that we want, and in exchange, we send them dollars. The beauty of the whole system is that the dollars we send across our northern and southern borders as well as abroad come back home when foreigners purchase American exports or make investments in America. U.S. economic growth, innovation and living standards all rise when that happens. Moreover, because the United States is viewed as a great place for investments, there’s a stronger demand for U.S. dollars, and that pumps up the value of the dollar.
AEI’s Desmond Lachman exposes some of the awful risks uncorked by Trump’s dangerous protectionism. Here’s his conclusion:
Sadly, it is far from clear that the Trump administration has a grasp on how costly to the U.S. public its China tariffs might be. It is also not clear that it understands the dangers of the tariff fire with which it is playing.
Also exposing some of the dangers of Trump’s protectionism is AEI’s Michael Strain. A slice:
The president is working against more than just his tax cuts. By pumping the brakes on economic growth, he’s hurting his own reelection chances. You would think that would motivate him to reach a face-saving deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and quickly. But this protectionist president seems not to have adequate clarity on what is and is not in his — and the U.S. economy’s — best interest.
The real problem with the public charge’s new definition is not that it’s harsh; immigrants can certainly survive without welfare. The problem is that it’s economically misguided. No one who cares about public finances would design a rule that entirely ignores the degree to which the immigrants support themselves. Mere use — projected by a bureaucrat in any amount — would trigger a public-charge denial, even if it was a tiny fraction of the person’s income.
Mike Munger exposes the harm done to the environment by most recycling.
In this new video, Johan Norberg exposes the fallacy that declares that insects are going extinct.
George Will exposes an instance of domestic protectionism in Chicago. A slice:
She was part of the proliferation of heterogenous truck-dispensed foods — one truck was called the Schnitzel King — that grew in response to consumer demand for the fun and convenience of curbside lunches of all sorts. This was, however, neither fun nor convenient for restaurants, which responded by (guess one): (a) upping their game in order to compete with the upstarts in trucks or (b) running to the government for relief from competition. If you guessed “b,” you get an A for understanding the land of the free and the home of the rent-seekers.
