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George Will makes clear that no ideology has done as much to create in the U.S. an imperial presidency – now, alas, in the hands of Trump – as has ‘progressivism.’ A slice:

Last weekend, many Americans — mostly progressives, surely — staged “No Kings” protests against what progressivism has done much to produce: today’s rampant presidency. Their chief concerns were domestic — unilateral spending cuts, deportations, etc. A week is, however, forever in today’s politics. Today, progressives, those occasional constitutionalists, are fretting about uninhibited presidential warmaking.

On Tuesday, Barack Obama descended from Olympus in his usual lecture mode, solemnly sharing his worries about Washington tendencies “consistent with autocracies.” Obama is and was a situational Madisonian. He rewrote immigration law after repeatedly and correctly insisting he had no legitimate power to do so. And he intervened in Libya’s civil war by waging war there for almost eight months without seeking congressional authorization or complying with the law (the War Powers Resolution).

Obama argued, through his lawyers, that the thousands of airstrikes that killed thousands did not constitute “hostilities.” Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith termed Obama “a matchless war-powers unilateralist.”

Andrew Stuttaford, as usual, is correct:

One of the characteristic failings of central planners is an inability to, so to speak, connect the dots. As they draw up their directives, they rarely succeed in thinking through how putting them into practice will work in the real world. They also tend be reluctant to accept the need to set priorities, or, for that matter, accept trade-offs.

Jon Miltimore applauds a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to strip environmentalists of a dangerous weapon. Two slices:

The high court’s decision not only revived a major energy project but also corrected a troubling trend: the misuse of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to obstruct economic development through ever-expanding regulatory demands.

The legal battle was years in the making. In 2021, the US Surface Transportation Board (STB) approved the railway, which would serve an area accounting for 85 percent of Utah’s oil and gas production. But in 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia blocked the project, ruling that its environmental impact statement (EIS) was insufficient. “It is clear that the Board failed to adequately consider the Rail Policies and ‘articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action,’” the court wrote.

The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition—a group of eastern Utah counties backing the railway—vowed to appeal. Meanwhile, environmental activists hailed the ruling, calling the project “a financial boondoggle and a climate bomb.”

Their celebration, however, was short-lived.

Last month, in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition et al v. Eagle County, Colorado, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the DC appeals court in a ruling that will rein in judicial overreach under NEPA—a law that environmental groups and judicial activists have used not as a constitutional tool for environmental safeguards, but as a means to delay or derail infrastructure and energy projects altogether.

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Environmental groups that wrongly view fossil fuels as inherently harmful may bristle at Sotomayor’s decision. But the Court rightly held that NEPA was never intended to serve as “a substantive roadblock” to economic development. Yet that’s exactly what NEPA became, as environmental groups turned to the courts to halt projects they opposed under the guise of judicial review.

For years, some federal courts played along, taking “an aggressive role in policing agency compliance” and effectively paralyzing executive agencies. The Court’s majority offered a reset, laying out a more “straightforward” framework for NEPA cases going forward.

Christopher Snowdon lays out the logic of “bootlegging Baptists.”

Sergio Martínez understands the economic damage done by protectionism.

In a new paper, Michael Strain busts several myths about manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and protectionism.

Tosin Akintola reports that “Trump’s immigration crackdown is overwhelming ICE facilities and running up huge bills.” A slice:

When factoring in how aggressive deportations reduce tax revenue and economic activity, the bill’s immigration provisions are nearly $1 trillion more than the CBO estimates, according to David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute.

The rising cost of immigration enforcement will continue unless Congress implements suitable legislative measures, he tells Reason. “Congress effectively has given up on policing what the agencies are spending their money on.” With Congress neglecting its fiscal duties, the Trump administration is spending “on what they want to spend it on, and really the only check is the internal politics within the administration.”

Jon Murphy wonders just how ‘screwed’ (to use Donald Trump’s charming language) America has been by the European Union.

Bob Graboyes touchingly remembers his late wife, Alanna.

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… is from page 220 of Thomas Sowell’s 2008 volume, Economic Facts and Fallacies:

Among the many preconceptions that cannot be subjected to any empirical tests, because they are so subjective, is the notion that third-party observers know better what is good for people than those people know themselves.

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GMU Econ alum Dominic Pino busts the myth that failure to allow SALT deductions is double taxation. A slice:

It is a bedrock principle of American government that the states are not mere administrative divisions of the country. Federalism means states have their own tax and spending powers that exist independent of the federal government. As a result, each American lives in more than one tax jurisdiction. It is not double taxation for each of them to tax you separately.

State and local governments do not provide the same services as the federal government. The federal government provides military protection, Social Security, Medicare, diplomacy, veterans’ benefits, national parks, and many other services that state and local governments do not. State and local governments provide education, transportation, law enforcement, child protective services, record-keeping, state and local parks, and many other services that the federal government does not.

When you pay state and local taxes, you are paying for different things than when you pay federal taxes. That’s not double taxation.

Calling it double taxation is akin to accusing your car insurance company of double-charging you because you also had to pay your home insurance company, as they both provide you with insurance. That’s true, they are both providing insurance, but it’s insurance for different things, so it’s perfectly reasonable to pay for it separately.

George Will rightly applauds a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling – one prompted by the remarkable Institute for Justice – reining in abuses of policing power. A slice:

In 2023, he was arrested, handcuffed, his Denver townhouse was searched and he spent a night in jail. A judge had issued a warrant against him because one police officer told a detective that a man with whom Mendenhall had argued called 911 to accuse Mendenhall of menacing him with a baseball bat.

The accuser did not testify before the judge who issued the warrant. The officer who wrote the affidavit did not speak with the accuser. And no one honored the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, as it was for 169 years, from the 1791 adoption of the Bill of Rights until 1960.

It protects Americans’ right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. It stipulates that no warrant shall be issued unless supported by “oath or affirmation.” As Jacob Sullum of Reason writes, those three words were generally understood to mean warrants could be issued only based on the government agent seeking the warrant having “firsthand knowledge of the relevant facts,” rather than based on “the unsworn claims of another person who was never subjected to judicial scrutiny.”

Jack Nicastro reports on Trump’s continuing, successful efforts to use protectionism to raise ordinary Americans’ cost of living. Two slices:

President Donald Trump has been celebrating in recent weeks as his administration strikes bilateral trade deals following “Liberation Day.” Some products, however, will soon be subject to increased duties, not lower ones. Starting June 30, imports derived from aluminum and steel will be subject to a 50 percent ad valorem tariff. These duties will hit imports of common household appliances like refrigerators and dishwashers and increase the cost of living for everyday Americans.

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The first submission period for product inclusions began on May 1 and ends on Monday. At press time, 17 public comments have been made. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick or a designee “will sign a positive or negative determination” about each of these requests for inclusion to be followed by “a determination memorandum in regulations.gov … within 60 days,” per the interim final rule.

Increasing the price of kitchen and home appliances doesn’t protect Americans; it just makes them poorer. And with Lutnick set to approve requests submitted to BIS between now and mid-August, Americans should brace for even more aluminum- and steel-derived imports to be hit with these 50 percent tariffs.

“Tariff advocates rarely talk about consumers, the linchpin of capitalism and freedom” – so explains Michael Chapman. A slice:

Politicians who support tariffs and other forms of government intervention in the economy frequently emphasize reshoring, trade deficits, cheap imports, and national security, but they rarely talk about consumers. That’s no accident. In a market economy, it is consumers, through their choices, who determine what goods and services are produced and at what price. They—not federal planners—are the true engine of capitalism and freedom.

Jon Miltimore warns against the economic amnesia that causes nostalgianomics. Two slices:

A decade ago, the late economist Steve Horwitz quipped that left-wing politicians had been bewitched by “nostalgia for the economy of the 1950s.” But he added that a Republican upstart appeared intent on stealing from the Democrats’ populist playbook.

“It is more than a little ironic,” Horwitz wrote, “that modern progressives are nostalgic for the very economy that GOP front-runner Donald Trump would appear to want to create.”

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To continue prospering, Americans must confront some uncomfortable truths — starting with the notion that assembling widgets on a factory line isn’t inherently more meaningful than making lattes in a café, writing code, or designing marketing campaigns.

They must also recognize certain truths about manufacturing. Despite the narrative US manufacturing has been “hollowed out” by trade agreements, capacity has increased more than 50 percent since NAFTA was signed and remains at near-historic highs.

While it’s true that manufacturing jobs as a percentage of nonfarm employment have declined substantially, the rate of the decline has slowed significantly since China became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2001. Moreover, the decline in manufacturing jobs has far less to do with trade than with technological advancements that have automated production and increased output with fewer workers — much as they did with farming, which once employed a third of the workforce but now requires less than 2 percent to feed the nation.

Whether Americans are willing to accept these realities is unclear. A recent Cato poll found that 80 percent of Americans say the country “would be better off if more people worked in manufacturing.” Yet the same poll found that just 25 percent of Americans say they themselves would be better off working in a factory job.

Here’s the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal on the economic pessimism that Trump’s tariffs are stoking in the Fed. A slice:

The Federal Open Market Committee offered no policy surprises Wednesday, but it did offer a new note of caution in its economic forecasts: President Trump’s tariffs are producing a mild stagflation.

The policy decisions were to leave the target Fed funds rate unchanged at 4.25-4.5% and maintain the current pace of quantitative tightening. But all eyes were on the latest batch of quarterly economic projections—the famous dot plots—to see where policy makers think the economy may be headed. In short, they think growth will be slower and inflation higher.

Scott Lincicome decries the Trump admnistration’s nationalization of U.S. Steel. A slice:

As we’ve already discussed (twice), there is no reason for the U.S. government to be involved in what is inarguably a small transaction involving two publicly traded companies that are both eager to seal the deal on mutually acceptable terms. The “national security” arguments for blocking or amending those terms are bogus: As I explained in December, “the U.S. military needs a tiny amount of domestic steel output and gets none of it from U.S. Steel,” and security experts across the political spectrum—including officials in both the Trump 1.0 and Biden administrations—saw no serious concerns. The government’s involvement was and remains about politics, and the whole drama serves as a serious black mark on U.S. international economic policy (and Biden’s time in office).

The terms released by Lutnick, however, make the matter much worse. They show that the new U.S. Steel will be controlled in large part by the U.S. government, and this arrangement will raise long-term questions and problems that just simply banning the sale—a clearly bad move, too—wouldn’t raise.

One might argue that this isn’t really “nationalization” because the U.S. government isn’t a majority shareholder in the company or involved in its day-to-day operations, but will instead dictate just a few actions that the business might take. But this view, which I’ve now seen a few times online, would be wrong for several reasons.

For starters, the golden share would govern a wide range of U.S. business activities, including investment levels and locations, firm management, workforce and salaries, plant operations, sourcing, pricing, and (apparently) trade litigation. As a result, U.S. Steel will have to obtain Uncle Sam’s permission to do a lot of stuff. Depending on the details, in fact, the arrangement really could give Washington a say on U.S. Steel’s routine operational decisions—if the government wanted one. (No terrible political incentives there!)

Just as importantly, the government’s formal control over these decisions will inevitably give it potential influence over other firm decisions that aren’t covered by the golden share. If, for example, the U.S. government objected to Nippon Steel’s decision to partner with a Chinese steel company in Asia, Washington could try to stop the deal by threatening to invoke its golden share powers in an unrelated U.S. transaction. And these implicit powers are obviously amplified by the fact that the one holding the golden share isn’t a private individual but the United States’ government, with all the additional benefits—legal, practical, etc.—such status confers.

Given this “extraordinary” U.S. government involvement, the Atlantic Council’s Sarah Bauerle Danzman concludes, “US Steel may not be state-owned, but it is certainly now controlled by the US government.”

Kristian Niemietz defends the correct use of the noble word “liberal.”

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… is from pages 149-150 of University of Connecticut economist Richard Langlois’s monumental 2023 study, The Corporation and the Twentieth Century (original emphasis; footnotes deleted; link added):

Because of human cognitive limitations, what Herbert Simon misleadingly branded bounded rationality, there are diminishing returns to centralized decision-making. The more complex the division of labor, the costlier it becomes to coordinate through a central mode. It becomes increasingly difficult for the center to monitor the behavior of the participants, and more importantly, it becomes increasingly costly for the center to possess all (or even enough of) the local knowledge of the participants. The market solves this problem by complete decentralization: it assigns the rights to make decisions to those with appropriate knowledge, allowing coordination among participants to take place primarily (though not necessarily exclusively) through the lean and inexpensive mechanism of the price system. This has the added benefit of solving the monitoring problem, since it makes the participants residual claimants – owners – who benefit from the prudent use of their local knowledge, thus creating an incentive for the participants to monitor themselves. In a market, decision rights are alienable, so they can move relatively easily into the hands of those who can make the best use of them.

DBx: Yes.

Scour the descriptions and criticisms of markets offered by Oren Cass, Mariana Mazzucato, Robert Reich, Marco Rubio, Elizabeth Warren, and other proponents of industrial policy. You will find in those descriptions and criticisms no recognition of the function of markets highlighted above by Dick Langlois. And, from the industrial-policyist’s standpoint, for good reason: to recognize this essential function of markets is necessarily to undermine any case for an industrial policy that promises to increase overall living standards in the economy.

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Benn Steil decries Trump’s lawless and reckless destruction of the rules-based global trading order that Americans in the past struggled to build and maintain – a trading order that Trump and his fans ignorantly presume, contrary to all evidence, has harmed America’s economy. Three slices:

The multilateral trade regime – built under the aegis of the GATT and institutionalized by the establishment, in 1995, of the GATT’s successor, the World Trade Organization – is now effectively dead and buried. Since 2019, during Trump’s first term, the Appellate Body for the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Mechanism has been inquorate – decapitated by American refusals to approve judges. For more than five years, no WTO decision has been legally enforceable.

Furthermore, notifications to the WTO of new trade barriers justified on “national security” grounds have soared since 2019, covering even products as innocuous as doorframes, coffee beans, and alcoholic beverages. Such exceptions render trade actions injudicable – at least under the US legal interpretation. Since 2017, the US alone has filed 30 such notifications. Mexico has filed 14, and Switzerland, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia have filed, 12, 10, and eight, respectively. In 2024, “national security” notifications reached an all-time high of 95.

Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs would also appear to violate US commitments under WTO Most Favored Nation rules (applying identical rates across member states) and Tariff Binding rules (establishing maximum rates). When the world’s leading importer brazenly flouts its most basic legal commitments, and decapitates the body empowered to sanction such action, it seems clear that the prevailing regime is a dead letter.

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The effect of Trump’s wayward tariffs, together with his ongoing threat of further tariffs, refusal to confirm WTO appellate judges, and repeated invocation of “national security” to cloak mercantilism, is likely to erode in the coming years global trade norms that were built up over eight decades. The result will be higher prices, less innovation, lower living standards, and greater geopolitical friction.

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This is a profound and painful shock to those of us who believed that the liberal order, for all its faults and limitations, was a blessed inheritance. A future US administration, equipped with muscle memory of an ordered past, may well try to restore elements of it; but, shorn of the moral authority and resource-dominance that accompanied America’s victory in World War II, it is difficult to see how it could succeed. With Europe still too disunited to fill the vacuum, and China professing no universal values, a dangerous period of Hobbesian each-against-all disorder seems inevitable.

National Review‘s Andrew Stuttaford understands well the ominous reasons behind today’s global flight to gold: It is, in significant part, a flight away from the American economy.

But not all news is bad; news of the weakening of the climate religion is genuinely good. A slice:

Global banks significantly increased their financing for coal, oil and gas projects last year, according to a new report by climate advocacy groups, marking a reversal at a time when lenders are backtracking on climate pledges.

GMU Econ alum Dominic Pino praises the U.S. Court of International Trade’s ruling against Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs – tariffs that Trump imposed under authority allegedly delegated to him by the 1977 IEEPA. A slice:

For a non-trade example, it is an enumerated power of Congress to “lay and collect taxes.” Congress has created the Internal Revenue Service, which is part of the executive branch, to do that job. The IRS has considerable power, but it is limited. It cannot change the tax brackets, create new tax credits, or invent a different kind of tax. When the IRS misbehaves (which it does), it is accountable to Congress, because that is ultimately where the constitutional authority lies.

It is not possible that Congress, in writing a law to delegate power to the executive branch, could completely cede its enumerated power in the Constitution. Any statute that it passes doesn’t change what the Constitution says. This becomes an issue for courts when the statute is vague.

The administration argued that because IEEPA says the president has the power to “regulate . . . importation,” that means Trump’s tariffs were permitted. IEEPA does say those words, and tariffs are one way to regulate importation, but such a power can’t be unlimited, because the Constitution says that only Congress has the power to levy tariffs.

What Trump did was essentially unlimited. He imposed tariffs on nearly every country in the world at the same time at very high rates and claimed unilateral authority to adjust them at will. That basically is the power to levy tariffs, which the Constitution says is a power reserved exclusively to Congress. The IEEPA, then, cannot allow unlimited tariffs.

I was happy to talk recently with David Lin about Phil Gramm’s and my new book, The Triumph of Economic Freedom.

Jack Nicastro asks: “How much of Trump’s ‘Built in America’ phone is actually built in America?”

Yesterday (June 17th) being the 95th anniversary of Herbert Hoover’s presidential approval of the justly infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff, Alan Dlugash concludes – correctly – that “on this grim anniversary, Smoot-Hawley’s lesson couldn’t be clearer: protectionism destroys. It shatters supply chains, invites retaliation, and throttles the free-market dynamism that built this country.”

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) explains that Trump’s tariffs weaken U.S. national security. A slice:

President Trump imposed 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum earlier this month. Regardless of any exemptions the administration offers, building a modern America-class amphibious assault ship requires 45,000 tons of steel. The net effect of this trade policy will be higher costs across the board, from military aircraft and lightweight armor plating to submarine repairs and shipbuilding.

Tariffs will also affect small, specialized components like those used in jet engines, night vision systems, and landing gear. When I recently met with a New Hampshire company that makes ball bearings for the aerospace industry, executives told me tariffs have driven up their costs and extended their production time—concerns industry leaders echoed in Paris.

These delays and rising costs don’t only slow American readiness; they erode our allies’ trust in the U.S. as a dependable partner.

Benjamin Zycher is understandably unimpressed with what he calls Trump’s “Soviet humor.” A slice:

Donald Trump is no George Washington. Nor is he Stalin. But in his exquisite ability to make almost everything about him—as Alice Roosevelt Longworth said of her father, Theodore Roosevelt, he “always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening”—Trump will engender a body of humor that will be with us for a very long time.

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… is from page 97 of Matthew Hennessey’s superb 2022 book, Visible Hand:

Those who promise “free” college, “free” health care, and all manner of other “free” goods often have to work hard to obscure the obvious caveats, the most important of which is that someone will pay, just usually not the person on the receiving end of the allegedly free things. Free lunches, as nice as they sound, aren’t really “free,” not in the sense that butterflies are free. Someone always pays. But a more important reality to bear in mind is that price is only one way of rationing scarce goods. There are other ways. In societies that purport to offer “free” health care, people often have to wait for absurdly long periods of time for doctor’s appointments and “nonessential” procedures. You can call it free if you like, but you pay with money or you pay with time.

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Bruce Yandle warns that “the tyranny of debt is alive and well.” A slice:

Just out-the-door DOGE director Elon Musk is sharply critical of the budget bill.  He sees it as undermining his efforts to reduce government deficits and debt and calls the latest version a “disgusting abomination.” President Trump, not at all pleased that Musk has become a megaphone-equipped, outspoken critic, has threatened to eliminate federal subsidies that support Musk’s Tesla sales and federal contracts that support Musk’s enterprises.

While these two titans tussle, one thing is sure. It’s a whole lot easier to borrow money than pay it off. The pay-off struggle constrains the ability to pursue happiness long after debt-enabled happy times have come to an end. The interest rate clock never stops ticking.  Debt is a tyranny.

“CEI joins Advancing American Freedom calling on Congress to reassert its control over the the Unconstitutional Tariffs.”

Phil Gramm and I are honored that Sam Gregg reviews our book, The Triumph of Economic Freedom, favorably in the Wall Street Journal. A slice (link added):

The debate isn’t exclusively about ideas and theory. It’s also, perhaps mainly, about history. When making their case for protectionism, for example, today’s economic nationalists insist that tariffs were central to the U.S. economy’s takeoff in the late 19th century. Critics of that position (Douglas A. Irwin of Dartmouth, among others) contend, with better evidence, that America’s explosive growth in those decades had little to do with tariffs. If anything, tariffs retarded growth in the sectors in which they were highest.

Today’s tariff proponents, however, seem largely uninhibited by facts. The reason is simple. They’ve worked out that if you control the historical narrative surrounding economic questions, you are more than halfway toward winning the policy battles. This is the insight Phil Gramm and Donald J. Boudreaux bring to “The Triumph of Economic Freedom.” In their words, “he who writes history determines the future.” The writing of American economic history, they argue, has long been dominated by skeptics of capitalism peddling myths that nonetheless retain potency and, predictably, populate high school and college textbooks.

In eight chapters, Messrs. Gramm and Boudreaux tackle seven longstanding historical myths about American capitalism that still influence economic discussion today. In each case, they are careful not to caricature the conventional wisdom they challenge.

But having given their opponents’ positions more than a fair shake, Messrs. Gramm and Boudreaux turn to extensive rebuttals. These are supported by detailed attention to data sets. The authors also outline alternative explanations for the path taken by American manufacturing since the 1970s, and for the state of poverty in America today.

A common theme throughout the book is the extent to which government intervention has either made situations worse during crises or impeded economic progress in other periods. Policymakers, meanwhile, have repeatedly exacerbated matters by misdiagnosing the problems confronting them or by doubling down on failed policies.

National Review‘s Jim Geraghty is correct (even though Trumpians apparently disagree with him):

The American government should not own a car company, and it should also not own part of a steel production company, either.

If congressional Republicans do not object to this arrangement, the GOP position is simple. The U.S. government owning shares in private companies and directing a company’s decisions is socialism, communism, economic foolishness, and arguably a form of economic fascism. But that’s only when a Democratic president does it. When a Republican president does it, it’s perfectly fine.

Also correct is Reason‘s J.D. Tuccille: “Parades are great, but we shouldn’t venerate the military.”

Canadian-born-and-raised American citizen David Henderson reflects on Trump’s treatment of Canada. A slice:

The U.S. Constitution is a beautiful mixture of checks and balances. The Bill of Rights is, of course, a check on government power. But other parts of the Constitution are a check also. Libertarian scholar Tom Palmer has pointed out that the Constitution enumerates the powers of each branch of the federal government. As I put it in a 2007 talk on Constitution Day, September 17, “If the federal government does not have a specific power granted to it within the Constitution, then it does not have that power. Period. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments assure that. The U.S. Constitution is a set of enumerated powers.”

What’s particularly relevant is that the U.S. president has no power to set tariffs—that power belongs only to the U.S. Congress. That means that President Trump is violating the U.S. Constitution and, incidentally, his oath of office. Some pundits argue that Trump does have that power because the U.S. Congress, in a 1977 law, granted him that power. That’s false. The only way the president can get new power—that’s not granted to him in the Constitution—is through a constitutional amendment. There’s a well-defined process for amending the Constitution. That has not been done.

The value of the U.S. dollar on foreign-exchange markets reflects global investors’ confidence in the American economy. The current fall in the value of the dollar is strong evidence that Trump’s policies are diminishing, not enhancing, American ‘greatness.’

Arnold Kling isn’t impressively impressed with Laura Field’s forthcoming book, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right. A slice:

Field profiles a number of scholars who are on the Trump train. Several of them are in the Administration. Famous names include Michael Anton, Christopher Rufo, JD Vance, and Patrick Deneen. There are about two dozen others.

Ms. Field disapproves of their politics. I am not a fan of any of them, either, but Ms. Field is coming from a standard lefty academic point of view, which by the time I reached the middle of the book had really turned me off.

So who do I like? I guess I am more of a fan of the older libertarians and mainstream conservatives. Give me the GMU economists (none of whom appears in the book), or some of the AEI scholars, or Rob Henderson, or Virginia Postrel, or Coleman Hughes, or Greg Lukianoff.

To get on Ms. Field’s radar, you seem to require an impressive academic credential, and preferably an academic institutional affiliation. This made me realize what a challenge this is for someone on the right. Other than George Mason, Claremont, or Hillsdale, is there a well-known college or university where you could populate even a small lunch table with faculty conservatives? No wonder the world of conservative intellectuals looks to Ms. Field like a tightly-networked conspiracy. You could fill the whole lot of them inside a meeting room in a Garden State Parkway motel.

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… is from President Ronald Reagan’s September 13th, 1986, “Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade”:

The Smoot-Hawley tariff ignited an international trade war and helped sink our country into the Great Depression.

Dbx: Today – June 17th, 2025 – is the 95th anniversary of Pres. Herbert Hoover signing into ‘law’ the justly infamous, economically calamitous Smoot-Hawley tariff. (It’s also the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.)

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… is from pages 5-6 of Douglas Irwin’s, Petros Mavroidis’s, and Alan Sykes’s 2008 book, The Genesis of the GATT:

The gradual restoration of the world economy [following WWI] was interrupted by a worldwide recession starting in 1929. This economic downturn was met by greater protectionism, which in turn further reduced world trade. Although monetary and financial factors were primarily responsible for allowing the recession to turn into the Great Depression of the early 1930s, the spread of trade restrictions aggravated the problem.