Here’s a letter to a relatively new correspondent.
Mr. W__:
Thanks for your follow-up email.
Contrary to your charge, I do not believe that I misled anyone when I earlier described Ronald Reagan as a free trader. Former senator Phil Gramm – whose commitment to free trade is deep and rock-solid – tells me (as he’s said publicly) that he witnessed first hand Ronald Reagan agreeing to protectionist measures reluctantly and only as a means of steering Congress away from imposing even worse protectionism.
As for China, the well-established national-security exception to the case for free trade might well apply in this case. But the desire to strengthen America’s (or the West’s) national security against a Chinese military threat cannot not explain Trump’s tariffs.
If Trump were truly intent on using trade measures to strengthen the U.S. relative to China, he would not have imposed baseline tariffs on imports from nearly all countries, along with additional tariffs on 67 others (not counting China). He would seek to deepen commercial ties with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and other allies rather than antagonize these countries, as he’s done with his indiscriminate tariff-rattling. Not only do tariffs on imports from friendly countries deny to us important inputs from these countries – inputs that bolster our military abilities – by antagonizing our friends Trump makes them less eager to help us and more open to increasing their commercial ties with China.
I’m open to a serious argument in support of thoughtfully crafted trade restrictions narrowly targeted to reduce a military threat from China. But what we’re getting from the Trump administration is anything but such thoughtful policy. What Trump serves up as justification for his tariffs is rank economic ignorance – for example, his insistence that U.S. trade deficits are a problem – splattered about, as are the tariffs themselves, with all the discretion and discipline of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
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
