Here’s a letter that Phil Gramm and I submitted on a several days ago to the New York Times (which was not published):
Editor:
Matthew Schmitz’s defense of Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs (“There’s One Person Trump Absolutely Needs in His Administration,” Nov. 22) is based on factual error and faulty logic. For example, it’s untrue that China’s December 2001 admission to the World Trade Organization accelerated the loss of manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs as a percentage of nonfarm jobs peaked in U.S. in November 1943; from then to December 2001 this percentage fell at an average monthly rate of 0.166%. Since China joined the WTO, the rate of decline has slowed to 0.144%.* Manufacturing jobs have declined over the post-war decades, not chiefly because of trade, but because of the development of new technology – just as technology was the chief source of the decline in agricultural employment in the 20th century, as employment in agriculture fell from 40% of the labor force in 1900 to 2% in 2000. This pattern is clearly evident in developed and developing countries, including China.
As an example of faulty logic, Mr. Schmitz uses an election poll to dismiss economic analysis and historical evidence. A majority of voters might well have said that they would support a pro-tariff candidate, but polling results hardly justifies waving off a long-standing conclusion from more than two centuries of evidence.
U.S. History offers no example of protective tariffs fueling sustained and widely shared economic growth.
Sincerely,
Phil Gramm
Mr. Gramm, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
Helotes, TXand
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA* Calculated by the authors from FRED Economic Data, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, “All Employees, Manufacturing (MANEMP)” divided by “All Employees, Nonfarm (PAYEMS).”
DBx: I thank Caleb Petitt for his research help with this letter.
