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Posted on 02/05/2026 10:51:22 AM PST by know.your.why
President Trump was right about tariffs, and his policy of trade reciprocity has contributed to the Trumpian economic boom.
Friday afternoon president trump posted an op-ed piece on "the wall street journal" web site entitled my tariffs have brought America back. And then it appeared in the Saturday morning print edition. I don't think people focus on it because everybody was talking about Mr. Trump's superb nomination of Kevin Warsh as federal reserve chairman. But it is worth revisiting this piece which is kind of the rebuttal for all the criticisms by "the wall street journal" editorial board regarding Mr. Trump's tariff policies.
Anyway, the president makes a lot of important points. For one thing, he notes that there was never any retaliation against his tariffs. And, therefore, all the Smoot-Hawley 1930’s talk turned out to be false alarms. In fact, instead of retaliation, there were deals. And Mr. Trump points out deals with China, the U.K., European union, Japan, a number of countries in Southeast Asia. But as he said, the deals reduced barriers for U.S. exports and may well have led to stock market booms not only here in America, but in all the countries that came to the deal-making table. Meanwhile, I’ll just insert that Smoot-Lawley -- Hawley raised tariffs 60% or 70%. But most of the effective trump tariffs are really closer to 15%. And as the president points out, a couple of hundred billion dollars in tariff-related revenues have helped lower the budget deficit by as much as 27%. Meanwhile, American exports way up. Imports? Lower. The trade deficit, narrowed substantially. Mr. Trump gives much of the credit for the economic boom to the one big, beautiful bill, tax cuts, lighter regulation, drill, baby, drill.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
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what most people don’t get is that the trump economy will create a virtual feedback loop that will balance the budget in 1-2 years.
Anyone that knows US history knew tariffs have always worked to protect, promote US industry and also raises revenue.
It’s a shame being smarter than high paid consultants.
A similar thing happened back in the second half of the 1990’s. at that time we had a balanced budget.
My guess is 90 % of Freepers are die hard anti tariff Free Traitors. This thread will get no attention from that stubborn lot.
I don’t think this thread will get much attention but mostly because its not sexy.
Free trade vs tarriffs is not such a hot button issue when its explained properly. I mean I didn’t get it at first. I was raised like everyone else as to the lessons of the 1930’s. And no one told me about how the US had built in trade concession after wwII that persisted long after they were appropriate. Nor did I understand that most US presidents don’t know how to negotiate a deal in America’s favor. They have all been Pax Americana paid for by the USA.
But once you get the big picture, it all makes sense.
You can’t discount the fact that the tariffs were not arbitrary, and that many other actions have been taken to lower domestic costs of production / improve logistics / improve supply lines / etc. And the tariffs themselves have been used to improve these situations and offset the effects of the tariffs.
A lot of the people saying “tariffs work” believe that imposing higher taxes in of themselves on imports is what caused the improvements. They are as clueless as those who claimed tariffs in all cases cause economic disaster. President Trump himself has removed or lowered tariffs on certain products to bring prices down.
The Smoot Hawley myth needs to be put down. When enacted trade was a teeny tiny part of the economy contributing less than 4% of GDP. 2.5% was exports and 1.5% imports. If Smoot Hawley stopped all trade it would have AT MOST shrink the economy by 4%.
Best US President Ever!
Agree
Fix SNAP and we’ll have a balanced budget again.
ABBA=MAGA
What is this budget you speak of?
It’s complicated and obviously there has to be a limit right? Why not 800% like the tariffs Japan puts on rice? I just don’t quite understand the mercantilist argument? How much should tariffs be? The strongest world economies are actually net importers - Luxembourg is one example.
Yes, but I do get the argument that it needs to be FAIR as well as free trade. The deal the Chinese had was in no way fair - aside from the fact all their military aviation advances came from espionage. Prison labor, lower quality standards, ect...
What is this budget you speak of?
This was the federal budget when Newt Gingrich was speaker of the house.
The federal budget was balanced for about 5 years from 1996-2000.
(the reason for the balanced budget was high economic growth and high stock market growth poured torrents of money into the federal treasury—while Newt restrained spending. I’m not sure that he actually made more than minor budget cuts.)
All true.
Does this count the 200 that he cancelled?
Some of us Free Traders would like to see a well written article on Tariffs with both the pros and cons.
So far we have seen cheer leading on all sides with cherry picking of an example (which is probably not typical) to prove their point.
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