Am I subsidizing Safeway? Why would I ask? Here’s why. My wife and I spend at least $400 a month at Safeway. Safeway doesn’t buy anything from us. So, our monthly trade deficit with Safeway is at least $400. And, in Trump’s view of the world, a trade deficit equals a subsidy. By Trump’s reasoning, yes, I am subsidizing Safeway.
This sounds ridiculous. It is. But it’s no more ridiculous than Trump’s claim that Americans are subsidizing Canadians. When you spend more on someone’s goods than that someone spends on your goods, there’s no subsidy involved. The fact that the spending occurs across borders doesn’t change that fact.
And that fact makes Trump’s proposed tariffs on Canadian goods and services all the more tragic.
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As I noted in the introduction, the reason Trump gives for his proposed 25 percent tariff rate on imports from Canada and Mexico is that he wants the governments of those two countries to crack down on fentanyl smuggled into the United States and on illegal immigrants crossing the borders.
That rationale, though, makes zero sense for Canada. As Washington Post reporter David Lynch wrote in a November 26 news story, “During the recently ended fiscal year, CPB [US Customs and Border Protection] confiscated 43 pounds of fentanyl along the northern border, 0.2 percent of the volume seized along the US-Mexico boundary.” Illegal immigration from Canada is also a small problem. In October, noted Lynch, “US agents made 1,283 arrests along the northern border, or about 41 per day on average.” Even if one strongly opposes fentanyl smuggling and illegal immigration, it doesn’t make sense to impose billions of dollars on costs and Canadians and Americans to address such a small problem. That’s on the heroic assumption that the Canadian government could effectively address both issues. Another cost to Canadians is the cost of law enforcement to deal with these small problems.
In both cases, Trump implausibly describes news reporting as “election interference” that constitutes consumer fraud because it misleads viewers or readers. It is hard to overstate the threat that such reasoning, which seeks to transform journalism that irks Trump into a tort justifying massive damage awards, poses to freedom of the press.
Although neither lawsuit is likely to make much headway, the cost of defending against such litigation is apt to have a chilling effect on journalism, which is what Trump wants. “We have to straighten out the press,” he told reporters on Monday, explaining his motivation in suing CBS and the Register.
Past presidents have at times demonstrated a lack of decorum and restraint when it comes to the bench. George W. Bush criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling about prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama infamously scolded the Supreme Court in front of the nation during his 2010 State of the Union address. Mr. Trump has lambasted a litany of judges over opinions he disagreed with.
Mr. Biden’s condemnation has been of a more insidious kind. He hasn’t restrained himself to taking issue with legal reasoning. Rather, he willingly joined the progressive campaign to use opinions the left dislikes to smear the Supreme Court as unethical, fanatical and partisan. Following the court’s Dobbs decision, which returned abortion to the states, he singled out “Trump” judges who would “upend the scales of justice” in a “realization of an extreme ideology.” After this summer’s ruling on presidential immunity, Mr. Biden assailed “the court’s attack” on “long-established legal principles,” including “today’s decision that undermines the rule of law.” He suggested the justices had gone this route for no other reason than to kowtow to Mr. Trump.
GMU Econ alum Dominic Pino decries the bipartisan Social Security giveaway to government workers.
