Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
Editor:
Reporting on the GOP’s call to ban diesel exports, you quote President Trump: “I’ve said let’s not send out the diesel. We make a lot of diesel” (“Republicans Are Running on Empty,” September 23).
Mr. Trump is deeply confused. He incessantly accuses foreigners of “ripping us off” by buying too few of our exports. Indeed, he asserts that foreigners’ failure to buy as many of our exports as we buy of theirs constitutes a “national emergency” that warrants sweeping tariffs. Yet now he supports banning diesel exports, thereby – according to his own lights – aggravating the very “national emergency” that he insists justifies his tariffs.
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
