Im-Politic: The Foreign Governments Funding Think Tank Experts on Trump Tariffs

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aluminum, Brookings Institution, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Im-Politic, Peterson Institute for International Economics, steel, tariffs, think tanks, Trade, Trump

With the announcement of the Trump tariffs on steel and aluminum – and the prospect of more trade curbs to come – the news organizations on which Americans rely for accurate and impartial information have understandably turned to private sector specialists for facts and analysis.

What’s much less understandable is that many of these specialists work at Washington, D.C.-headquartered think tanks that receive significant funding from foreign governments – many of whose economies will be profoundly affected by any major changes in U.S. trade policy. Even worse, the press coverage of the Trump tariffs has consistently failed even to mention these conflicts of interest – even though some news outlets have reported on the subject in considerable detail.

To give you an idea of how widespread these conflicts are, here’s a list of the foreign government donors for three major think tanks, drawn directly from their websites, and some figures indicating the often major sums these governments (including groups they fund) have contributed to these organizations’ budgets for the most recent data year available:

 

The Brookings Institution, 2016-17:

$1 million – $1.999999 million

Government of Norway:

$500,000-$999,999

Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade

United Arab Emirates

$250,000-$499,999

The Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership

Japan International Cooperation Agency

Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States

$100,000-$249,000

Australian Government, Department of Industry, Innovation, & Science

$50,000-$99,999

Government of Denmark

European Recovery Program, German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy

European Union

Government of Finland

Korea International Trade Association

CAF-Development Bank of Latin America

Department for International Development, United Kingdom

Embassy of France

Japan Bank for International Cooperation

Temasek Holdings

The Korea Foundation

Korea Institute for Defense Analysis

Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

 

Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2016

$25,000-$49,999

Korea Institute for International Economic Policy

Swiss National Bank

Up to $24,999

Central Bank of China, Taipei

European Parliament

Japan Bank for International Cooperation

Korea Development Institute

Korea International Trade Association

Embassy of Liechtenstein

Monetary Authority of Singapore

 

Center for Strategic and International Studies 2016-17

$500,000 and up

Japan

Taiwan

UAE

Academy of Korean Studies

Korea Foundation

$100,000-$499,999

Australia

Denmark

South Korea

Turkey

$5,000-$99,999

Canada

China

France

Liechtenstein

The Netherlands

United Kingdom

Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership

European Development Finance Institutions

Norwegian Institute of Defence Studies

Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Shanghai Institutes for International Studies

Taiwan Foundation for Democracy

 

As I’ve written before, even analysts whose paychecks are wholly or partly written by foreign governments (or other special interests, like offshoring-happy multinational companies) can provide valuable insights.  They also have every right to weigh in on any policy debate they choose.  But unless you believe we don’t live in a world in which money talks, and that this goes double in a national capital, it’s clear that news consumers have an equally important right to know the source of the money behind the views they’re reading about – and that the media is letting its readers, viewers, and listeners down when this information is kept concealed.   

 

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Making News: A New Op-Ed, National Radio Tonight…& More!

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aluminum, At the Crossroads, automotive, foreign takeovers, Making News, Memphis Commercial Appeal, Qualcomm, semiconductors, steel, tariffs, Ted Evanoff, The John Batchelor Show, The National Interest, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that a new op-ed of mine was published yesterday – a post on the website of the foreign policy journal The National Interest on some of the more fundamental issues raised by the Trump administration’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Click here to read my argument that the uproar over the levies reveals a major disagreement tension between the ideal of free trade and the ideal of free markets.

In addition, I’m scheduled to reappear on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show tonight on the Trump administration’s decision to block a foreign takeover of the U.S. semiconductor company Qualcomm. The segment is slated to begin at 10:15 PM EST, and you can listen live at this link. As usual, I’ll post a link to the podcast as soon as one’s available.

And I just found out that on March 8, Ted Evanoff of the Memphis (Tennessee) Commercial Appeal quoted me in a piece on the economic impact of the Trump tariffs. Ted is one of the country’s best manufacturing reporters, and his 2010 book At the Crossroads is a superb history of the modern American automobile industry and why its fortunes sank so sharply through the outbreak of the financial crisis. So I’m always flattered to know that he’s keeping up with my work.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: For America’s Steel-Makers, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

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aluminum, American Economic Review, durable goods, inflation-adjusted output, Jobs, manufacturing, Michael Mandel, multifactor productivity, productivity, steel, tariffs, The Economist, Trade, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

One of the strangest aspects of the debate over the new Trump tariffs is the way analysts and reporters and pundits are now handling the issue of productivity in the American steel industry, which along with aluminum will receive the benefit of these levies.

Usually, industries like steel that win trade protection are described as economic losers – they supposedly need this government crutch because they’ve grown fat and lazy, or technologically obsolete, and as a result have lost whatever ability they’ve had to meet the challenge of global competition. Here’s a typical allegation along these lines made in 2002 by the globalization and free trade cheering Economist magazine – when President George W. Bush imposed tariffs on U.S. steel imports. The charge has been echoed much more recently by economist Michael Mandel.

Nowadays, though, tariff opponents have come up with a new twist: American steel-makers in particular don’t need protection precisely because they’ve become highly competitive. According to this perspective, the steel protectionists inside the outside the White House are overlooking how the major steel job losses they’re obsessing about have resulted overwhelmingly not from predatory foreign competition, but because steel companies have become so efficient that they can produce much more of the metal with a much smaller workforce.

There’s no doubt that the U.S. steel industry has dramatically boosted its competitiveness by introducing new technology and other forms of knowhow into its factories. The authors of the above Economist editorial clearly didn’t know about findings, published in the prestigious American Economic Review, that over the roughly 30 years preceding their leader, the sector’s “output per worker grew by a factor of five, while total factor productivity (TFP) increased by 38 percent. This [made] the steel sector one of the fastest growing of the manufacturing industries over the last three decades, behind only the computer software and equipment industries.”

Moreover, because virtually no American steel firms supply the domestic market with offshored production, virtually none of the labor productivity increase cited above has stemmed from the misleading upward bias to recorded labor productivity figures created by this practice.

But 2002 was then. What about now? Is Mandel right about steel as a latter day productivity growth laggard? Not according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles and publishes the productivity data for the government. Its figures show that the American primary metals sector, which includes steel and aluminum, increased its multi-factor productivity by 5.52 percent between 2008 (when the last recession took hold) and 2015 (the latest figures).

Manufacturing overall, by comparison, saw its productivity actually worsen by this measure – considered the most accurate gauge of an admittedly elusive performance indicator – by five percent during this period. Moreover, durable goods manufacturing – the industrial super-sector containing primary metals – saw its multi-factor productivity shrink by 1.28 percent between 2008 and 2015.

So The Economist and Mandel plainly have given steel a wholly unjustified bad productivity rap. But does that mean that those who have recognized steel’s outstanding recent productivity growth are right to argue that the resulting job loss in no way warrants tariffs? Not exactly.

For even though steel and other primary metals have been productivity growth leaders, they’ve been laggards not only in job creation, but in output. Indeed, during that 2008-15 period, primary metals’ inflation-adjusted production sank by more than three times faster (15.98 percent) as overall manufacturing output (5.22 percent). The output gap was even wider between steel and durable goods in toto (-1.28 percent).

A highly productive industry facing a vast import tide that’s been shrinking in constant dollar terms doesn’t prove definitively that trade is central to steel’s problems. But it’s awfully suggestive – indicating in the process that, despite its good productivity deed, the U.S. steel industry is nonetheless being punished.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Martin Wolf Whiffs on the Trump Tariffs

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allies, aluminum, EU, European Union, Financial Times, General Motors, Martin Wolf, Mary Barra, national security, steel, tariffs, Trade, Trump, World Trade Organization, WTO, {What's Left of) Our Economy

I hate to go after the Financial Times‘ Martin Wolf, because he’s definitely one of the world’s smartest and most responsible economics commentators. Unfortunately, his March 6 column on the Trump tariffs fell so far short of his standards – and in fact simply parrots so much wrongheaded and/or simplistic trade-related conventional wisdom – that a response is essential. Let’s take his main arguments seriatim.

Wolf is apparently upset that the tariffs are “explicitly intended to last a long time.” But what could make more sense? If the aim is to spur more American steel and aluminum output, which requires major capital investments that need time to pay off, short-term tariffs, or tariffs with a publicized termination date, are bound to fall way short of their mark. The former will naturally scare off investors that simply have the requisite time horizon; the latter will additionally tell potential capital sources and foreign steel and aluminum exporters exactly when they can resume dumping subsidized product.

Wolf believes that the tariffs will so raise the costs of steel- and aluminum-using U.S.-made products that these industries and their workforces, which vastly outnumber those of the metals-makers, will suffer major losses of global competitiveness. In making this claim, he both overlooks the relatively small steel and aluminum content of many of these products, and oddly dismisses any possibility that these businesses will find ways to offset any notable input price increases with greater efficiencies elsewhere in their operations.

I say “odd” because that’s exactly what conventional economics tells us will happen – at least with companies determined to stay in their respective businesses. It’s one main reason why productivity growth exists at all. It’s also at the least significant that no less than General Motors Chair and CEO Mary Barra has stated that that’s exactly what her company will do: “We would look to find offsets and efficiencies to offset that [higher steel prices] and not have to pass it on to the customer.”

Wolf worries about the spread of what he admits are trade actions confined to steel and aluminum because so many American trade partners will retaliate. I was waiting for him – as a major supporter of free trade – preemptively to scold these countries for not realizing that theory holds that the best way to respond to tariffs is by compensating losers, not by retaliating. But it doesn’t appear to think that this venerable maxim applies outside the United States.

Wolf predicts that this retaliation will take the form of World Trade Organization  (WTO) challenges and safeguards “to forestall diversion of imports on to their markets.” But because the global steel market is a single integrated market (like so many other markets in this era of extensive globalization), such country-specific measures will fail to prevent diversion as completely as have similar past U.S. Measures. That’s probably why the European Union, for example, has hinted that it won’t wait for the WTO Good Housekeeping Seal for any retaliation. Which of course would be illegal according to WTO rules.

Wolf regurgitates the argument that the sweep of the Trump tariffs will hit “friends and allies” – belying the claim that they’re based on national security considerations. As I’ve noted, though, many of these supposed friends and allies have long been directly or indirectly helping make sure that an outsized share of Chinese-spurred global overcapacity in steel and aluminum winds up being sent to the United States. With allies like these….

Wolf expresses bewilderment that the United States would seek protection for its steel and aluminum industries because output in both has been “stable” since roughly 1990. But in the business world, that’s a euphemism for “no growth since roughly 1990.” Does that scream “competitiveness” to you? Moreover, Wolf overlooks the loss of global and U.S. market share for both sectors – not normally a sign of companies or industries with bright or even viable futures. (See here for the steel data and here for the aluminum figures.)

Wolf uses tariffs as his main measure of whether, as many trade policy critics argue, the United States really is the world’s least protectionist major economy. But nowhere in his article does the term “non-tariff barriers” appear – a shocking omission given their prevalence and strong growth as global negotiations have reduced tariff rates worldwide.

Finally, Wolf alludes to the canard that America’s national savings rate is overwhelmingly responsible for its bloated trade deficits. In fact, the relationship between the trade and broader current account balances on the one hand, and the savings rate on the other is a mathematical identity. As such, it says nothing whatever about causation – which could easily flow the other way.

It’s understandable that Wolf doesn’t like the Trump tariffs per se – I’ve been critical of them in some respects myself. But the scornful tone of his article, and its utter failure even to consider obvious rejoinders (much less address them) indicates that something deeper is at work here: One of our most thoughtful and knowledgeable economics analyst has come down with a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Making News: Video of Today’s CNBC Interview on the Trump Tariffs

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"Closing Bell, aluminum, CNBC, Making News, steel, tariffs, Trump

I’m pleased to report that the streaming video is now on-line of my appearance this afternoon on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” show. The subject: those new Trump tariffs on U.S. imports of steel and aluminum – and just how much free trade actually has been taking place in the world lately. Just click on this link if you missed the live broadcast.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: On CNBC this Afternoon on Trump Tariffs – & More!

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"Closing Bell, aluminum, Chronicles, CNBC, Making News, steel, tariffs, Tom Piatak, Trade, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that I’m slated to appear today on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” program to talk about President Trump’s announced new tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum imports.  The segment is scheduled to begin at 3:10 PM EST.

You can watch on-line at CNBC.com, and as usual, I’ll post a streaming video of the interview as soon as one’s available.

Also, it was great to be mentioned in Tom Piatak’s new posting on the subject on the website of Chronicles magazine. Here’s the link.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: New Trump Tariffs and China Podcasts – & More

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aluminum, AM 970 The Answer, Broadcom, Chicago Stock Exchange, foreign takeovers, FoxNews.com, Gordon G. Chang, Lifezette.com, Making News, manufacturing, Morano in the Morning, national security, Plastics News, Qualcomm, steel, tariffs, tech, The Christian Science Monitor, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, Trump

I’m pleased to report that, thanks largely (but not entirely) to the firestorm set off by President Trump’s announcement of steel and aluminum tariffs, it’s been a busy media period recently.

At the crack of dawn (literally!) this morning, I was interviewed on the subject on “Morano in the Morning” on New York City’s AM 970 The Answer. Here’s the podcast.  My segment begins at just before the 16-minute mark.

Speaking of podcasts, here’s the one of my appearance on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show last Wednesday. The subject, as you may recall, was the prospect of foreign interests taking over one of America’s leading semiconductor manufacturers – Qualcomm.

In addition, in a March 2 FoxNews.com post, Batchelor Show co-host Gordon G. Chang quoted in more detail my views on this proposed deal and the broader subject of foreign takeovers of key defense-related American economic assets. Here’s the link.

Also on March 2, The Christian Science Monitor featured my views on the Trump tariffs in this lengthy news analysis.

In addition, on that day, Lifezette.com‘s coverage of the tariffs included my views at length.

The day before, Plastics News highlighted my analysis of the latest U.S. manufacturing trade figures in this post.

On February 19, in another FoxNews.com post, Gordon presented my views on another proposed Chinese takeover of an important American asset – this time, an entire stock exchange!  Here’s the link.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Following Up: More on the Trump Tariffs

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aluminum, Australia, Canada, David J. Lynch, Defense Department, defense manufacturing base, downstream industries, European Union, Following Up, George W. Bush, Gordon Hanson, James Mattis, Kentucky, manufacturing, Mitch McConnell, multiplier, Paul Krugman, Paul Ryan, steel, steel-consuming industries, tariffs, terrorism, The New York Times, Trade, Trump, U.S. Business and Industry Council, United Kingdom, Washington Post, Wisconsin

I could spend all day today rebutting ignorant, biased, and simply inane commentary on President Trump’s Thursday announcement that stiff tariffs will be imposed on U.S. imports of steel and aluminum (along with watching the plethora of college hoops on TV today!). Instead, I’ll offer some follow-on thoughts to the tariff talking points I posted yesterday.

>The European Union in particular seems outraged by the Trump decision, and has threatened to retaliate with tariffs on its own on a wide range of products, including some from Wisconsin and Kentucky. These of course happen to be the home states of House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. It’s an understandable, and certainly clever, impulse, and in 2003, something like it succeeded in convincing former President George W. Bush to lift steel tariffs he had imposed 18 months earlier.

Of course, Bush 43 was no Trump. He was a committed free trader and globalist, and/or agent of of America’s powerful corporate offshoring lobby. But here’s something that needs to be considered by Messrs Ryan, McConnell, and other lawmakers at whom the Europeans or other powers may take aim: What if, shortly after September 11, Osama Bin Laden had threatened to destroy major targets in their home states or districts unless the United States withdrew militarily from Afghanistan and left him alone. Would the affected legislators have run to the White House to plead for an abandonment in the war on terror? Not likely.

I know that war and economics are different (although given the importance of economic strength as a source of military strength and overall national success, the similarities and overlap are widely overlooked). But don’t doubt for a minute that American politicians’ reactions to these European threats will be watched closely in all the world’s capitals, and that signs of weakness will be factored into foreign decisions to abide by or violate current trade agreements at the U.S.’ expense, or take other measures to gain advantage in their own, American, or third-country markets that clash with free market and free trade norms.

So here’s hoping that American Members of Congress and Senators will show some backbone, and make clear to the nation’s trade partners that they won’t permit themselves and the country at large to be hanged separately.

>Speaking of hanging separately, quite naturally, U.S. steel- and aluminum-consuming industries are concerned that their global competitiveness will be harmed if they’re forced to use more domestic metal in their products. They need to keep two considerations in mind. First, if foreign governments are permitted by Washington’s inaction to dump major American industries like aluminum and steel out of existence, consuming sectors would be next in line. 

Second, there is indeed no inherent reason to make the consuming industries pay any penalty at all. When I was at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, which represented many steel-consuming companies and industry groups, we persuaded them that the best solution would be tariff protection for them as well. The tariff complaints coming from such sectors today reveals that the Trump administration hasn’t put this possibility on the table. That’s a major missed opportunity, and the President should realize that such offers not only can build support for the steel and aluminum tariffs. They can also expand the constituency for broader America First trade policies. (New Trump statements on possible auto tariffs make clear exactly the types of steps needed, although as is usually the case, they work best when applied across-the-board.)   

>Speaking of missed opportunities, here’s another (big) one – the handling of some allied countries’ indignation about being treated as threats to America’s national security because of their steel and/or aluminum shipments. In several major cases, these complaints could have been prevented had the administration recognized that Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom are defined by American law as part of the nation’s defense “technology and industrial base.”

I’m not necessarily a supporter of this policy, but since it exists, these countries have an entirely legitimate point regarding their possible inclusion in the metals’ tariff regime. And the Trump administration should have explained to them that they were of course being exempted. Moreover, the Defense Department should have told the rest of the administration about the legal and legislative situation. Yet Pentagon chief James Mattis’ memo to his administration colleagues outlining his department’s position on the tariffs never mentioned it.

Not that these allied countries are entirely blameless for the row. They could have raised the issue when the prospect of sweeping U.S. tariffs was first raised. But all indications are that they preferred to grandstand.

>As should now be expected, the media coverage of the tariff controversy has often veered off into economics and policy La-La Land. Two of the funniest examples I’ve seen so far (and they’re nearly identical): criticizing the announced tariffs because they only boast the potential of bringing back high-value manufacturing to the United States instead of lots of industrial jobs.

Think I’m kidding? Here’s Washington Post correspondent David J. Lynch: “If tariffs prompt companies to move production back to the United States, they would likely opt for highly automated plants that require fewer workers. Trump’s tariffs ‘would bring back 21st-century factories where we lost 20th-century factories,” [economist Gordon] Hanson said this week at the National Association for Business Economics conference in Washington.”

Here’s no less than Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul M. Krugman: “[T]he tariffs now being proposed would boost capital-intensive industries that employ relatively few workers per dollar of sales; these tariffs would, if anything, further tilt the distribution of income against labor.”

What both authors are somehow missing is how manufacturing is valuable for much more than high wage employment. It’s long been the nation’s leader in productivity growth. It generates nearly 69 percent of private sector American spending on research and development. And don’t forget its high employment and output multipliers – which mean that each dollar of manufacturing output punches far above its weight in generation production and jobs elsewhere in the economy.

That last point is particularly relevant to Krugman’s claim about labor’s low share of national incomes. The manufacturing employment multiplier tells us that adding to industry in America – including capital-intensive industry – will promote employment in related sectors like logistics, plus revitalize the retail and other service sectors of the towns and cities and counties where the new factories are built. Those jobs may not pay as well as the manufacturing jobs lost. But they’re sure better than the economic death that often results when communities lose their factories.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Case for Trump’s New Metals Tariffs

Tags

alliances, allies, aluminum, China, inflation, manufacturing, overcapacity, steel, subsidies, tariffs, Trade, trade law, Trump, World Steel Association, World Trade Organization, WTO, {What's Left of) Our Economy

President Trump has announced his decision to impose tariffs on U.S. imports of steel and aluminum – cue the trade war hysteria. And the national security hysteria. And the inflation hysteria. Here are some talking points I hope the administration will feel free to steal as it defends the decision in the days leading up to the release of the final tariff plan:

>Many countries have declared their intention to retaliate against the American tariffs with higher barriers to U.S. exports. Curiously, they are overlooking the Chinese government-subsidized overcapacity at the root of the long-time distortions in world steel and aluminum markets.

>Many of these countries want the problem tackled multilaterally. But the World Trade Organization (WTO) has failed to stem this overcapacity (or deal effectively with many other forms of Chinese trade and broader economic predation), and a G20 forum specifically addressing the steel issue has produced nothing since its founding in December, 2016.

>Although major steel-producing powers like the European Union have imposed their own steep tariffs on shipments from China, the global glut has continued. One reason may be that, since the global economic recovery took hold in 2010, according to World Steel Association data. the United States has been the major steel producer that has suffered by far the greatest loss of global production share by volume. (See this post of mine for the 2010 figures and the Steel Association’s latest report for the most recent – January, 2018 – figures.) And as of the most current World Steel Association data (2016), the United States is also the steel producer with the highest steel trade deficit by volume (21.7 million tons). 

>As a result, charges that American steel tariffs in particular will jeopardize the rules-based global trade system seem to be arguing that this system requires the United States to remain as the world’s dumping ground for government-subsidized steel.

>A much more constructive response from America’s trade partners would be finally getting serious about shutting down China’s overcapacity and placing market forces back in the saddle for global steel pricing. The Trump tariffs should be seen as a signal that the United States will no longer accept world steel trade patterns that treat the United States as the fall guy, and should therefore act as a spur to achieve genuinely meaningful multilateral results.

>The above gaming of global steel trade by so many American trade partners also explains the need for the kinds of sweeping measures made possible by the national security-oriented Section 232 of U.S. trade law, rather than the narrower curbs required by, say, the countervailing duty statutes.

>Fears have been expressed in the U.S. foreign policy community, and by the Trump administration’s Defense Department, that certain tariff schemes may needlessly harm America’s relationships with key security allies. Those voicing such concerns should also explain why countries that would permit these U.S. measures to undermine alliance relationships should be seen as reliable partners when overseas crises erupt.

>Tariff opponents contend that America’s use of an allegedly bogus national security rationale for the curbs will open the doors for other members of the WTO to use equally specious justifications for their own tariffs on numerous products. These opponents seem to forget that most of the world’s major economies, which rely heavily on export-led growth resulting from large trade surpluses, so far have encountered little difficulty in protecting their own domestic markets via a wide range of both tariff and non-tariff trade barriers.

>New national security rationales for new tariffs will be especially suspicious if used by the numerous American security allies that have been free-riding on U.S. defense guarantees for decades – and skimping on their own defense spending. These allies include Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Canada.

>Tariff critics also insist that the American economy will suffer major harm from foreign retaliation. They seem – oddly – convinced that U.S. trade partners that rely heavily on net exporting to the United States for their growth have nothing to fear from further the American trade restrictions that may result. Will these countries really launch trade attacks on one of their best customers?

>Tariff opponents focusing on economic impacts argue that the measures will increase the cost of a key American manufacturing input, and reduce the competitiveness of domestic steel-and aluminum-using industries. They seem to fear that these industries cannot become or remain globally competitive if such inputs are priced via free market mechanisms, rather than kept artificially cheap due to foreign government decisions.

>These economically focused tariff opponents also seem to believe that the current U.S. economy is one characterized by companies that enjoy considerable pricing power. Given inflation that has long undershot the Federal Reserve’s target, that’s a difficult argument to understand.

>In addition, those with an economic focus appear unconcerned about the prevalence and spread of government interventions in trade flows not only in steel, but in a wide variety of traded goods. If foreign governments conclude that they can subsidize and dump two key American industries out of existence, why would they stop with steel and aluminum? How can a growing presence of foreign government-subsidized goods (and services) help strengthen free markets in the United States and enable Americans to reap their maximum gains? And how can such growing foreign intervention help the global economy as a whole progress toward reaping the maximum gains of unfettered trade?

Over to you, Mr. President!

Making News: Yesterday’s CNBC Interview on Trump Tariffs, & Edward Harrison on Populism’s Roots!

Tags

aluminum, Bill Griffeth, CNBC, CreditWritedowns.com, crony capitalism, Edward Harrison, Henry George School of Social Science, Kelly Evans, Making News, Populism, steel, tariffs, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that the video is on-line of my interview yesterday on CNBC on the possibility of Trump administration steel and aluminum tariffs. Click here to see the segment, which includes the teachable moment in which I inform anchors Kelly Evans and Bill Griffeth that much and maybe most of the trade taking place around the world isn’t free.

Also, late last year, I had the fascinating experience of some reverse role-playing – conducting an interview for the Henry George School of Social Science with an exceptionally insightful thinker on economics, finance, and politics:  Edward Harrison.  Our subject?  Edward’s argument that the recent populist wave in the United States and Europe largely stems from public anger over the worsening crony capitalism and related growth of monopolies and oligopolies on both sides of the Atlantic.  Here’s the link.

It’s also great to report that Edward recently joined me on the Board of Trustees of the Henry George School. We’re starting to come out with a series of exceptionally interesting books, studies, and hold compelling conferences, seminars, and similar events. In fact, it’s likely I’ll be conducting some more interviews in the School’s SmartTalk series. So if you’re interesting in exciting new thinking about economics, finance, and their relationships, make the hgsss.org website one of your regular surfing destinations! Ditto for Edward’s own site: Credit Writedowns.