Mr. Donald J. Trump, President
Executive Branch
United States Government
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500
Mr. Trump:
Yesterday on Truth Social you again expressed opposition to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the tariffs that you imposed under IEEPA. In doing so, you wrote that “it doesn’t make sense that Countries and Companies that took advantage of us for decades, receiving Billions and Billions of Dollars that they should not have been allowed to receive, would now be entitled to an undeserved ‘windfall.’”
With respect, you are profoundly mistaken. What you wrongly describe as foreigners ‘taking advantage’ of us is foreigners offering us attractive deals. (Should we prefer that foreigners offer us unattractive deals?) Every cent of the “Billions and Billions of Dollars” that you mention is a cent paid voluntarily by Americans who choose to purchase imports.
Your assertion that foreigners “should not have been allowed to receive” those “Billions and Billions of Dollars” is really an assertion that your fellow Americans should not have been allowed to spend those dollars – their dollars, sir, not yours – as they judge best.
Forget your failure to understand basic economics, especially the fact that dollars that foreigners don’t spend on American exports are dollars invested in America. Instead, focus on the morality of the matter: What right do you have to tell your fellow Americans how they can peacefully spend the incomes that they earn? What moral precept authorizes you to sit in judgment of, with the power to forcefully override, how your fellow Americans conduct their economic affairs?
Even if, contrary to fact, such an arrogant exercise of power did no damage to the economy, it has no place in a free society. You should be ashamed of the contempt in which you obviously hold your fellow Americans, a majority of whom saw fit to entrust you with the power of the presidency. What a pity that, in return, you do not trust your fellow Americans even to spend their own incomes.
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
