Free Republic

President Donald Trump has had a splendid first year in office. He has the economy moving again and at a healthy pace, some 2.6 percent in the most recent quarter. Unemployment is down, the stock market is up and the economic signs are mostly healthy. Well, for the stock market that was until last week. That was the week in which the President announced his intention to slap a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum. The market tanked, and more problems are said to be coming internationally. It appears the world does not...

Donald Trump made the biggest policy blunder of his Presidency Thursday by announcing that next week he’ll impose tariffs of 25% on imported steel and 10% on aluminum. This tax increase will punish American workers, invite retaliation that will harm U.S. exports, divide his political coalition at home, anger allies abroad, and undermine his tax and regulatory reforms. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.7% on the news, as investors absorbed the self-inflicted folly. ... The immediate impact will be to make the U.S. an island of high-priced steel and aluminum. The U.S. companies will raise their prices to nearly...

ary D. Cohn, President Trump’s top economic adviser, plans to resign, becoming the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the Trump administration, White House officials said on Tuesday. The officials insisted there was no single factor behind the departure of Mr. Cohn, who heads the National Economic Council. But his decision to leave came after he seemed poised to lose an internal struggle amid a Wild West-style process over Mr. Trump’s plan to impose large tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. “Gary has been my chief economic adviser and did a superb job in driving our agenda, helping...

From Lincoln to William McKinley to Theodore Roosevelt, and from Warren Harding through Calvin Coolidge, the Republican Party erected the most awesome manufacturing machine the world had ever seen. And, as the party of high tariffs through those seven decades, the GOP was rewarded by becoming America's Party. Thirteen Republican presidents served from 1860 to 1930, and only two Democrats. And Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson were elected only because the Republicans had split. Why, then, this terror of tariffs that grips the GOP? Consider. On hearing that President Trump might impose tariffs on aluminum and steel, Sen. Lindsey...

US President Donald Trump's vow to step-up protectionist policies to boost the US car industry could lead to a 10-percent drop in profits for German automakers, Germany's Center for Automotive Research (CAR) has warned. The trade barriers would see the European Union's alliance with America "deteriorate significantly," the center's director, Ferdinand Dudenhöffer told DW. He said Trump's desire to "punish" Washington's main trading partners in Europe would inevitably end in a messy divorce that would hurt US car manufacturers more.

Donald Trump doubled down Friday on his plan for steel and aluminum tariffs, telling his advisers he won’t exempt any countries from the new blunderbuss border taxes, and issuing on Twitter one of the greatest displays of economic nonsense in presidential history. “When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!,” Mr. Trump tweeted Friday morning. Let’s parse that...

The Talk Shows March 4th, 2018 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House trade adviser Peter Navarro; Business Roundtable President Joshua Bolten.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross; Sen. Anus King, I-Maine.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Navarro; Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; Andrew Pollack, father of student killed in Florida school shooting.THIS WEEK (ABC): Ross; Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Navarro; Manchin; Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio.

There was a simple reason why Donald Trump won the 2016 election. It wasn’t because Vladimir Putin was changing votes (though he didn’t.) It wasn’t because evangelicals voted for him in necessary numbers (though they did.)The reason I felt strong enough about it the week of the election that I drew a map predicting how he would win—which states—and was correct, was far simpler than the wildest conspiracies you’ve heard. He connected with working people, and they trusted him. Particularly they trusted him in states with a lot of empty production plants. Like making a solemn vow, they trusted him...

One of the ironies of trade protectionism is that tariffs and import quotas are what we do to ourselves in times of peace what foreign nations do to us with blockades to keep imports from entering our country in times of war. Or consider that we impose sanctions on U.S. enemies such as North Korea, Russia and Iran because we want them to feel the economic pain of being deprived of imports. But now we are imposing sanctions on our own country by punishing with tariffs in order to make Americans more prosperous. If ever there were a crisis of...

President Donald Trump's tariffs will damage the economy to some extent, and if NAFTA talks break down it could be even worse, CNBC senior contributor Larry Kudlow said Thursday.