Posted on 04/07/2025 6:10:07 PM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” host Larry Kudlow said that he doesn’t really think using trade deficits to calculate tariffs is a good idea and that if the Trump administration gets tax cuts and deregulation, it will spark growth and “We will grow faster than almost anybody. Therefore, almost by definition, by growing faster than the rest of the world, we’re always going to have a trade deficit.”
While speaking with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Kudlow said, “I don’t know if you heard Art Laffer in the prior interview, but Art doesn’t believe that the trade deficit should be a metric. I don’t really either. Mr. Secretary, if you get your tax cuts, and I guess you’re well on the way, you get your deregulation, these are all huge pro-growth items, okay, we will grow, we, the United States, will grow faster than Japan. We will grow faster than almost anybody. Therefore, almost by definition, by growing faster than the rest of the world, we’re always going to have a trade deficit. So, I don’t know why you’d want to use the trade deficit in a calculation for a reciprocal charge. I understand your point about non-tariff barriers, I get that. That’s why I would have chosen a handful of countries, I don’t know, maybe ten or a dozen countries, and really carefully pinpointed it. But to apply this to the whole world on the basis of trade deficits, is that really the best, in your judgment? You’ve been around a long time, you’ve looked at these, you’ve done analysis, is that really where we should be at?”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
It’s amazing the amount of ignorance these financial experts have. Their words are hardly out of their mouths when hard and fast fair trade agreements are setting aside these tariffs as we FReep.
Earlier today it was 50 countries, now it’s 70. More to come.
But these doom and gloomers never saw this coming? They never had a clue?
words are flexible ... Trump has just as much right to define “tariff” as anybody else
How hard to bypass one countries tariff by funneling through a proxy?
"The Micawber Principle".
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.
President Trump increases the risk, that he will not get the tax cuts that he envisions . . . as he stretches out the timeframe in which, he leaves the tariff issue unsettled-per-country.
Settlement, stability = better chances for getting, maintaining tax cuts.
China has mastered that method of going through proxies. That’s probably what Larry is missing. If everybody goes to 0 there are no backdoors. It will also be the end of the CCP.
I also suspect there is a measure of pressuring Russia who is likely using proxy trade to bypass the embargoes and this move by trump has an aspect of bringing Russia to cease fire.
He's not objecting to the tariffs.
He's asserting the macroeconomic calculus that using '...the trade deficit in a calculation for a reciprocal charge" is inappropriate.
He's asserting the reciprocal charge should be calculated differently on a country by country basis and that the "trade deficit" should not be a component in that calculation.
Yeah. I’m sure Trump is using every non-military means he can to pressure Russia. He came out today and said there are no tariffs on Russia because we don’t do any business with them. Ouch!
He’s asserting the reciprocal charge should be calculated differently on a country by country basis and that the “trade deficit” should not be a component in that calculation.
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If a trade deficit makes no difference in assessing a tariff, then what does?
When you’ve lost Larry, your logic does not carry.
If he is talking about tariff rate, he's wrong as far as I am concerned. A country that wants to do business with the largest and most profitable market in the world should expect to pay a premium for entry and continued access. Getting the same rate in and out is generous on our part.
And, there will be cases where the strategic value of a country's products may warrant an exception to the reciprocal rates. But the default should be the same rate in both directions.
Ramblings of an old drunken coot.
POTUS Trump has the leverage with this calculation. It is not just a 0% tariff he wants on US goods, he wants no VAT as well as US tariffs kept in place to pay for the decades of tariff costs related to US goods sold internationally.
Tariff reparations sounds fantastic.
Uh let's see. How about the tariffs they are putting on our exports.
He is incorrect.
China lies and cheats. They use proxies like Vietnam to ship their products and avoid responsibility for the damage done.
One thing leads to another to another.
Their tariffs led to trade deficits which led to reciprocal tariffs on Trump’s part.
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