Donald Trump: A 21st Century Protectionist Herbert Hoover

Newsmax ^ | August 29,2015 | By Stephen Moore & Lawrence Kudlow

[Hojczyk]

By Stephen Moore & Lawrence Kudlow

Here's a historical fact that Donald Trump, and many voters attracted to him, may not know: The last American president who was a trade protectionist was Republican Herbert Hoover.

Obviously that economic strategy didn't turn out so well — either for the nation or the GOP.

Does Trump aspire to be a 21st century Hoover with a modernized platform of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff that helped send the U.S. and world economy into a decade-long depression and a collapse of the banking system?

We can't help wondering whether the panic in world financial markets is in part a result of the Trump assault on free trade.

Trump is also now running full throttle on an anti-immigration platform that could hurt growth as well and alienate Republicans from ethnic voters that the GOP needs if it is going to win in 2016.

We call this the Trump Fortress America platform. He clearly sees international trade and immigration as a negative sum game for American workers.

He recently announced that as president he would prohibit American companies like Ford from building plants in Mexico. He moans pessimistically that "China is eating our lunch" and is "sucking the blood out of the U.S.?"

But strategic tax cuts and regulatory relief after the anti-business rule-making assault by Obama, not trade and immigration barriers, are the solution to America's competitiveness deficit.

A draft of Trump's 14-point economic manifesto promises that, as president, he would "modify or cancel any business, or trade agreement that hinders American business development, or is shown to create an unfair trading relationship with a foreign entity." Special: Engineers Call This the ‘Solar Panel Killer’ His immigration stance would not just deport illegal immigrants, but even lock the golden doors to those who come lawfully

[jmaroneps37]

Stephen Moore & Lawrence Kudlow are two GOPe scumbags. Disregard what they have to say.

[SWAMP-C1PHER]

Your comment has spurred my renewed interest in studying this subject further. Thank you.

[Wolfie]

God forbid we have someone who puts America first.

[Wolfie]

Yeah, protectionism is really hurting Germany.

[Wolfie]

Amen!

[Twinkie]

Momma used to make white gravy for breakfast & she always called it “Hoover Soup” - (You make it using water instead of milk. If you use milk to make it; you can no longer call it “Hoover Soup”.)

[Ohioan]

As as Jeffersonian, I understand & ordinarily favor very low tariffs, and free trade. However, the indifference of many Wall Street types--and do not misunderstand me, I have been in the market since I was 18, as my only real form of savings;--the indifference of many Wall Street types, today, to the particular interests of their fellow Americans, adds a factor to the free trade argument, which Jefferson would never have had any truck with, whatsoever.

We need to find ways to counter the breakdown in a sense of community, in what were once congenial & caring communities in virtually every State in the Union. If businesses do not factor in a sense of community in their business decisions--i.e., a sense of being a part of the communities in which they are (or were) headquartered; they clearly play into the hands of those crack-pot internationalists who want to undermine the very concept of a nation; or the unique heritages of the peoples of the world. They also, undermine the once responsive sense of a community, among those who once looked to them as a source of local pride, employment, etc..

It also should be noted that Hoover, unlike this Ohioan, was very much of an internationalist. They pick on one Tariff Bill, which I guess he signed. But his whole history was as a Left leaning--never a right leaning--Republican. But if they actually wanted to better understand the Great Depression--and how many people managed to survive under desperate circumstances;--they would look at many strong communities, where Americans who then cared about their neighbors shared their better material well being with them, in much the same spirit that people on the frontier joined in building their neighbor's barns.

Anyone who is unable to recognize the community pride element that once was a major factor in business decisions, does not really understand economics. The simplistic pursuit of immediate cost savings, over all other elements of real value, is a display of narrow focused ignorance; the opposite of sound economics.

[robowombat]

‘Kudlow and crew didn't have any problem when .gov[your money and mine] was bailing out wall street. Now the status quo might get changed back to how things worked in the past and they are going ape. ‘

Exactly. Kudlow manages to be simultaneously a whore and a pimp for the ‘business oligarchy’. His prognostications are always the same; import masses of uneducated turd worlders, export higher skill jobs, socialize the costs of unlimited immigration and privatize all the profits.

[Regulator]

Said more eloquently then I could.

The chief point is what you said: China is at war with us, and they play for keeps.

Good for them. Least they have a nationalist outlook.

But so should we, and getting moderately cheaper iPads is not a reason to lose the country.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I'm inclined to think that whatever success Germany enjoys is in spite of protectionism, and not because of it. Consider, however, that their GDP is far lower than ours, as is their overall standard of living, and that they spend only a tiny fraction of GDP on defense. You can probably say that protectionism "works" in Germany the same way that socialism "works" in the Scandinavian countries. I'm not sure I'd be willing to sacrifice my standard of living and way of life for what they have.

This entire debate underscores, for me, the reason why statism and liberalism are in the ascendant in our country these days. It is very difficult to retain one's conservative outlook in the face of events that try our sense of reason, and make the emotional alternative seem the better of our options.

[Ohioan]

Check out my comment #47. I think you might find the additional factors that I throw into the picture, useful.

By the way, doesn't the German approach to "training," suggest that they have also a better sense of preserving actual communities?

[Regulator]

They are corrupt going in or they become corrupted totally within hours of being seated

Not true of young Mr. Cruz, Lee, Cotton, Amash and a fair number of other good guys.

Corker, Hoeven, Cochran and the entire RINO front...sleazy con men from the get.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Let me add this one thing: do you notice how, when speaking of the goods and services that are produced in this country, people on this very site speak of those things as if they were communal property, to be disposed of and manipulated by the State for whatever purposes they, in their wisdom, see fit? That’s how far American conservatism has come since the days of Reagan.

[SE Mom]

Well, even if it’s been posted several times, I’ve learned a great deal reading the comments on this thread.

I’m a real simpleton when it comes to understanding global economics. I believe in freedom, not coercion. But from what I’m reading “free trade” as actually practiced is kind of like reading labels on products at the grocery store. The capital letters say “ALL NATURAL”...but just underneath it says coloring, or includes some, or may have 1% real....etc. So it’s not all natural, but there is a small percent that includes some natural ingredient.

Based on my ignorance I’ve been quite wary of Trump’s talk of tariffs and wild talk. But I may have been dazzled by the ALL NATURAL label.

[arthurus]

Not enough. It is a percentage. If 70% of your electees go immediately over to the dark side then the whole organization is corrupt and nothing good gets done and much evil does get done.

[Ohioan]

You are right about Larry. He is very Conservative on some economic questions; but as blind as a bat on the economic importance of multi-generational senses of community; of patriotism as a major factor in economic decisions; of the economic as well as social importance of preserving a people's sense of their kith & kin, etc..

He has really turned me off, with his outrageous advocacy of a "liberal" immigration policy, over a century after the closing of the frontier in America's 48 contiguous States. That is absolutely a stupid, totally myopic, focus on cash flow & cheap labor, while ignoring many other economically, as well as socially, much more important factors.

[RetSignman]

Yeah, I think he IS a protectionist, he’s trying to protect our country from the Washington Elitists.

[nathanbedford]

I think it is important to try to compare apples to apples when comparing standards of living of two countries. But that is extremely difficult, however, Wikipedia tries here Standard of living in the United States And by some measures standards are better in Europe. For example, I have one son attending law school in Europe, cost free. I have one son attending university in Europe, cost free. I have another son attending university in America which costs about $60,000 a year.

When I get the benefits of socialism I like it but when I have to pay for other people's benefits I don't like it so much. So I take your point, how much respect do we want to have for property which many of us equate with liberty and how much value do we want to put on "community" or the idea that property is something "we didn't build" and therefore up for grabs and distribution?

I'm a conservative so I put very high value on property and liberty. But we need to do more than merely pay lip service to it. There is more to the value of property than owning a pickup truck with a Confederate flag in the back window and a gun rack while existing on food stamps.

There has to be an open avenue of opportunity which vindicates the American dream of working hard and making your way up. That presumes an honest government, a true rule of law, reward based on merit and real opportunity.

It does not, as you point out, imply a claim on my neighbor's property.

[nathanbedford]

It is not by accident that the left hated "Leave It to Beaver" and passes up no opportunity to denigrate that show and use it as an example of a culture stultified and imprisoned by its own convention.

It is not that the left hates the idea community, quite the contrary they want to impose their rigid ideas of community on us and political correctness is only a foretaste, rather it is that they hate any conception of community which competes with their own. So the decency of "Leave It to Beaver" is anathema to the left not because it was inherently undesirable that people help each other in time of need as you describe but the opposite, because it was attractive, because it was decent.

In fact I think the left has taken the idea community and exploited it which explains much of the appeal of leftism. The best historical reference I can make is to the EST movement of the 1970s which sought to strip away the individuality of the victim and remold him into an "EST-hole." This is really the meaning of "drink the Kool-Aid" in which the individual abandons his responsibility to himself to think for himself and submits himself, his conscious being, his conscience, his power to reason, to the "community."

This is what I think Hillary Clinton was driving at when she talked about yearning for an "ecstatic experience" in her graduation address at Wellesley. She was speaking of the emotional and psychic release obtained by such a surrender of the will, by such an immersion. I think this is a key part of why the left is so emotional about their candidates and so irrational in their thinking. When a subject is in this state it is easy for him to despise a decent culture which they caricature as "Leave It to Beaver."

[M1903A1]

The best historical reference I can make is to the EST movement of the 1970s which sought to strip away the individuality of the victim and remold him into an "EST-hole." This is really the meaning of "drink the Kool-Aid" in which the individual abandons his responsibility to himself to think for himself and submits himself, his conscious being, his conscience, his power to reason, to the "community." This is what I think Hillary Clinton was driving at when she talked about yearning for an "ecstatic experience" in her graduation address at Wellesley. She was speaking of the emotional and psychic release obtained by such a surrender of the will, by such an immersion. I think this is a key part of why the left is so emotional about their candidates and so irrational in their thinking. When a subject is in this state it is easy for him to despise a decent culture which they caricature as "Leave It to Beaver."

"True Believer"-ism, as described by Eric Hoffer, writ large. They despise individualism because they know deep down that they cannot function, much less succeed, as individuals.