But today I want to address another issue – namely, the lies Republicans tell themselves in an attempt to normalize this behavior or dismiss it as a “negotiating tactic.” Trump’s erratic decisions aren’t strategic, they’re destructive. No matter how powerful the presidency has become (and it has grown excessively powerful due to Congress irresponsibly delegating authority), this is an abuse of power. It is not the president’s role to dictate how Apple and other private companies conduct their businesses. Threatening Apple with tariffs unless it relocates manufacturing to the United States is an egregious overreach, harmful to liberty and deeply damaging to the trust required for economic growth.
Trump’s unpredictable behavior undermines trust and economic stability both domestically and internationally. Trading partners increasingly view the U.S. as unreliable and unstable, recognizing that they cannot depend on agreements made by this Administration.
American families and businesses already face inflationary pressures and rising costs, and tariffs worsen these burdens by driving prices higher. Trump’s policies will continue that and no special interest policies like no tax on tips will make up for it.
Republicans who refuse to confront this damaging approach share responsibility for the long-term economic harm inflicted on our economy and nation.
Eric Boehm reports on Trump’s decision to make iPhones more expensive. A slice:
Trump sees himself as the country’s shopkeeper in chief who gets to set prices on all goods sold in America. That’s the sort of central planning that should scare all but the most hardened of socialists. Now, instead of setting prices for broad categories of products—by hiking tariffs on steel, aluminum, and so on—Trump seemingly wants to expand his purview to individual products.
Finally, let’s play with a hypothetical. Imagine that, one year ago, President Joe Biden had woken up in a bad mood, stumbled into the White House briefing room, and shouted into a microphone about a plan to make iPhones more expensive. That would likely put an end to any questions about the president’s mental acuity or his fitness for office. Republicans in Congress would be outraged about the president’s scheme to raise prices on products that Americans need for their daily lives, and maybe they’d even try to stop it from happening.
Why should Trump be treated any differently?
Tom Grennes writes wisely about Trump’s chaotic trade ‘policy.’ A slice:
However, Trump’s primitive method of alternately adding and subtracting tariffs has broader adverse economic effects beyond trade. Policy reversals increase uncertainty for all decision-makers whose costs and benefits are spread over time. His frequent reneging on initial executive decrees reduces his credibility to near zero. By ignoring the role of Congress in setting taxes, the constitutionality of his executive decrees is being widely challenged.
The Trump administration rolled out a justification for its reciprocal tariffs that, as even a high school economics student knew, made no sense. Is this now, in fact, par for the course?
After all, Joe Biden’s signature climate law was similarly senseless. Three outside groups were dredged up to argue disingenuously that it would reduce emissions, leaving out the obvious, known ways subsidizing certain U.S. consumers to use less fossil fuel would cause others to use more.
These estimates were then cited (not endorsed) by the White House’s once-respected budget office in an unsigned, undated handout.
Voilà, Mr. Biden or his string pullers got what they wanted: an official-looking document upholding the false intuition that subsidizing green energy helps climate change.
…..
From Larry Summers comes the theory that Peronist hucksterism from Latin America has gradually crept north.
I’ve toyed with my own idea: Our elites have already quietly internalized the U.S. as a future failed state such that lesser boondoggles (like EVs) don’t matter.
One pattern, however, is faithfully replicated year after year. When Donald Trump or even a normal Republican talks policy nonsense, the media go ape whereas Democrats are fawned over.
It’s easy for any disaffected individual to lodge a complaint against a professor for a host of vague offenses, such as “discrimination,” “harassment,” or some other vaporous misdeed. The complaint then triggers procedures that are extremely one-sided, onerous, and potentially career-ending. As Wolfinger states, “An army of digital soldiers now stands ready to target faculty members,” and university officials usually take their side.
In the book’s 18 chapters, we have cases of left-leaning professors in the crosshairs of conservatives and of right-leaning professors under attack from “progressives.” The common thread is that people who didn’t like them were able to abuse the system to hound and damage them, purely for vengeance.
