Free Republic

Donald Trump's threats to slap steep tariffs on Chinese and Mexican imports may have won him votes in Republican primaries but they would likely backfire, severely disrupting U.S. manufacturers that increasingly depend on global supply chains. The Republican presidential front-runner's campaign pledges to impose 45 percent tariffs on all imports from China and 35 percent on many goods from Mexico would spark financial market turmoil and possibly even a recession, former trade negotiators, trade lawyers, economists and business executives told Reuters. "I don't mind trade wars when we're losing $58 billion a year," Trump said in a Feb. 25 debate,...

The Tariff We reaffirm our belief in the protective tariff to extend needed protection to our productive industries. We believe in protection as a national policy, with due and equal regard to all sections and to all classes. It is only by adherence to such a policy that the well being of the consumers can be safeguarded that there can be assured to American agriculture, to American labor and to American manufacturers a return to perpetrate American standards of life. A protective tariff is designed to support the high American economic level of life for the average family and to...

Levin: Populism is Progressivism, Which is Statism (audio: 12:41)

In a strongly worded editorial on Monday, China's official media criticised the rise of Donald Trump in the race to the White House, warning of severe consequences if he is elected US president. 'The rise of Trump has opened a Pandora's box in US society,' says the editorial published by the People's Daily and the Global Times newspapers, two mouthpieces of the Communist Party of China. 'Instead of pointing fingers at other countries for their so-called nationalism and tyranny, the US had better watch itself from becoming a source of destructive forces against world peace,' it says while underlining Trump's...

... Though from time to time trade protection can help specific groups, it always hurts the broad mass of workers and most firms. All consumers pay for the protection given some by losing access to less-expensive imports and suffering a consequent reduction in their living standards. Unprotected firms pay as well by having to spend more on inputs to their processes. They lose business by failing to deliver products to American consumers at lower prices and seeing their competitive edge in global markets weaken. Their growth slows accordingly, including their ability to create more jobs. A most dramatic, though hardly...

Claude Frederic Bastiat (1801-50) — a French classical liberal theorist, political economist and member of the French National Assembly — wrote an influential essay titled “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen.” He argued that when making laws or economic decisions, it is imperative that we examine not only what is seen but also what is unseen. In other words, examine the whole picture. Americans who support tariffs on foreign goods could benefit immensely from Bastiat’s admonition. A concrete example was the Bush administration’s 8% to 30% tariffs in 2002 on several types of imported steel. They...

Claude Frederic Bastiat (1801-50) -- a French classical liberal theorist, political economist and member of the French National Assembly -- wrote an influential essay titled "That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen." Bastiat argued that when making laws or economic decisions, it is imperative that we examine not only what is seen but what is unseen. In other words, examine the whole picture. Americans who support tariffs on foreign goods could benefit immensely from Bastiat's admonition. A concrete example was the Bush administration's 8 to 30 percent tariffs in 2002 on several types of imported steel. They...

...when making laws or economic decisions, it is imperative that we examine not only what is seen but also what is unseen. In other words, examine the whole picture... ...A concrete example was the Bush administration’s 8% to 30% tariffs in 2002 on several types of imported steel. They were levied in an effort to protect jobs in the ailing U.S. steel industry. Those tariffs caused the domestic price for some steel products, such as hot-rolled steel, to rise by as much as 40%.... ...there is no such thing as a free lunch... ...steel-users — such as the U.S. auto...

Somebody please tell Donald Trump: A trade deficit isn’t a loss. You could even argue it’s a gain. The Republican presidential frontrunner has been railing against “bad trade deals” since declaring his candidacy last summer. And he’s amplified the criticism, if that’s possible, in recent weeks. “If you look at China, and you look at Japan, and if you look at Mexico … they’re killing us,” he said during the latest Republican debate on Fox News. “With China we’re going to lose $505 billion in terms of trade …. Mexico, $58 billion. Japan, probably about… $109 billion.” Trump is talking...

Donald Trump has pitched himself to voters as a proud protectionist, intent on punishing the Chinese companies that he says are hurting American workers. In his January meeting with the editorial board of the New York Times, he said he would impose a 45 percent tariff on all products imported from China. Luckily, we don’t have to guess how such a tariff would impact the economy, because the Obama administration attempted a version of Trump’s idea seven years ago. It did not go well. “It’s basically a real-world case study on what would happen if we imposed 35 percent tariffs...

The Department of Commerce today announced its affirmative preliminary determinations in the anti-dumping duty investigations of imports of cold-rolled steel flat products from Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom. In the Brazil investigation, mandatory respondent Companhia Siderurgica Nacional received a calculated preliminary dumping margin of 38.93%. The second mandatory respondent, Usiminas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerais, did not respond to all of Commerce’s requests for information, and therefore received a dumping margin based on adverse facts available. Usiminas and all other producers/exporters in Brazil also received a preliminary dumping margin of 38.93%. China Receives Heavy Duties...

George Washington's clone would have hard time in today's political climate, especially if he wanted to be president. The globalist controlled world would try to crush the father of our country in ways King George III could never have dreamed of.The man who warned of foreign entanglements would find a country enmeshed in foreign trade, wars and politics the likes of which would make old Georges wooden teeth fly out of his mouth. What happened to protectionism? Why is industry shutting down in the USA and off shored for labor arbitrage under the guise of government regulatory burdens? Regulations are...

Here’s a story which seemed to get lost in the shuffle this month, what with so many other alerts devouring the news cycle. A memo was sent out from the Obama administration early in January directing a change to how products from Israel are labeled. As Adam Kredo at the Washington Free Beacon explains, this has riled up many folks on both sides of the aisle. A memo issued earlier this month by the Obama administration directs the U.S. "trade community" and government partner agencies to explicitly label Israeli-made goods that have been produced in the West Bank.The Jan. 23...

Donald Trump exemplifies one of the strange and lamentable dynamics in democratic discourse: People tend to have the strongest opinions on those things about which they have the least knowledge. Herr Apfelstrudelfuhrer imagines himself issuing decrees that presidents have no power to issue, and he doesn't seem to understand that illegal immigration -- his headline issue -- isn't in the main driven by people walking across the Mexican border. He doesn't seem to understand how laws are made or how government money is appropriated. He has, to say the least, a lot to learn. Now he wants to launch a...

It was the Detroit News headline "Trump goes after Ford Motor Co." not how long Hillary went overtime in the restroom that got our attention. Donald Trump made a whistle stop outside Grand Rapids, Michigan to take aim at Ford’s plans to expand production in Mexico. Trump promised if elected he would threaten manufacturers with big tariffs on imports to discourage building manufacturing plants south of the border. Trump to Ford, "If you build that plant in Mexico, I’m going to charge you 35 percent on every car, truck part that you send into our country," he said. "Every single...

Free trade is supported by enlightened thinkers and academic economists.  Those who are opposed to free trade are seen as special interests trying to shelter uneconomic industries that can’t stand up to foreign competition.  It is a truism that no trade transactions would take place if they weren’t to the advantage of both parties.  What could possibly be wrong with trade that is advantageous to both parties? If free trade is so wonderful, one has to wonder why many of our trading partners are resistant to it.  Perhaps these countries are just behind the times.  They may not have...

“Claims that trade deals increase exports and create jobs are based on flawed trade models, and on distorted and one-sided interpretations of the findings of those models,” Scott explained. “If you’re president, you’re going to have to live with it,” Pelley said to the billionaire businessman during the interview, referencing NAFTA. Trump fired back: “Excuse me, we will either renegotiate it or we will break it. Because, you know, every agreement has an end.” Pelley said Trump can’t just break the law. “Excuse me, every agreement has an end. Every agreement has to be fair,” Trump reiterated. “Every agreement has...

Donald Trump is firing salvo after salvo tonight on 60 Minutes. He's winning the arguments in a hostile, communist environment. The unhinged far-left interviewer, Scott Pelley, may have been born in Texas but he's not a true Texan because he rejected the Conservative Christian (and Jewish) values of the Lone Star state. Since Pelley (like Dan Rather, Walter KKKronkite and Egbert R. Murrow) is a limp-wristed metrosexual who hates America, it's great to see him getting TRUMPED! Go Trump go! Attack! Attack! Attack!

The powerful Globalist players at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission are certainly watching the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Trump has already made statements about immigration they find troubling. They may or may not be taking Trump’s presidential run seriously. They may or may not view him as an inconsequential blowhard, a shoot-from-the-hip cowboy who forgets today what he said yesterday—but today the New York Times has made reference to Trump in a way that will make these Globalist heavy hitters pause and blink while drinking their morning coffee (Here in “As Stock...

The Republican Party must be tearing its hair out. For years, visitors from the US have extolled the strength of the party’s potential Presidential candidates for 2016. The pack is certainly more impressive than in 2012 and, with the exception of one or two candidates, they are ostensibly advocates of relatively free market policies. In a campaign against an unlikeable Hillary Clinton, many conservatives were quietly confident of victory in 2016. But all these voices are being drowned out by the brash businessman and property magnate Donald Trump. Despite widespread criticism for his remarks about “rapist” illegal Mexican immigrants, Trump...