Here’s a letter to a new correspondent.
Mr. S__:
You accuse me of being an “extremist free trader thinking all Pres. Trump is trying to do is make the economy stronger.” But, you say, “the President’s goal in his tariffs is grander by encompassing a total restoration of America’s dominance on the world stage.”
I don’t know you’re talking about. Not only is the U.S. economy by far the world’s largest – it’s 50 percent larger than the world’s second largest economy (China’s) and more than six times larger than the world’s third largest economy (Germany’s) – the dollar remains the world’s global reserve currency, the U.S. receives far more foreign direct investment than does any other country, U.S. military spending is nearly three times greater than the second-highest military spender (China), our country continues to lap any other country in attracting immigrants, and our language is the world’s most widely spoken.
Non-Americans surely are completely befuddled when they encounter assertions from MAGA-types such as yourself that the U.S. is a lame, inconsequential, washed-up, and battered and abused weakling that can be restored to its former greatness only by the braying and bullying tactics of Donald J. Trump.
With respect, you write nonsense.
But even if I’m wrong and America really is the dupe and punching bag of other countries, your man Trump – if only because he’s profoundly ignorant of trade – isn’t the savior you take him to be. Trump’s belief that U.S. goods trade deficits with individual countries, such as Switzerland, are a problem that signals mistreatment of, and harm to, the U.S. is a belief so ill-informed, so whackadoodle, so downright ludicrous, that to imagine that a person who clings to this belief is to be trusted to invigorate the patient is monumentally self-destructive.
Suppose you contract pneumonia and your neighbor, a real-estate agent, shows up to give you medical advice. He tells you, with boundless confidence, that your disease is caused by little gremlins who invaded your skull and that you can be cured only by having your neighbor bang you incessantly in the head with a sledge hammer. If you can imagine how you’d react to such a diagnosis and proposed remedy, you might begin to understand how those of us with at least an inkling of knowledge of economics react to Trump’s diagnosis of U.S. trade and to his quack remedies.
Sincerely,
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 22030
