Rent-Seeking Is Alive and Well in Trump’s Tariffs
Rent-seeking is a problem that those on the left should have to answer for whenever they propose extensive new regulations. But as President Trump’s recent steel tariffs show, the problem knows no political ideology, and is an inevitable occurrence at the friction point between personal connections and power. The only way out, it would seem, would be to greatly reduce the very power to regulate.
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What Is Mercantilism?
I do not deny that countless other modern-day politicians are also mercantilists. But this fact doesn’t mean that Trump is less of a mercantilist than he really is. He is a poster-boy for modern-day mercantilism.
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The Real Reason for the Trade Deficit
The cure for the deficit problem is not to hamper free trade but to replace the dollar as the international reserve currency with a private currency and to reduce America’s budget deficit, which absorbs the financial inflows from abroad.
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The Tariff Bill Comes Due
What’s called “economic nationalism” is really just a cover for a political power grab and the manipulation of the public. The price is paid by you and me and everyone.
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President Trump’s Bargaining Prowess Is a Liability, Not an Asset
When aggression is military, each government attempts to protect its citizens from that which is unleashed by foreigners. But when aggression is economic, it is unleashed by each government against its own citizens.
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Merchant Opposition to Protectionism Grows
The cause of free trade is fortunate this time to have the support of the merchant class.
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Trade Retaliation Hurts Everyone
Whenever our government “retaliates” with trade restrictions of its own, it unfairly tilts the playing field here at home in favor of politically potent producer groups and against the rest of us.
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National Defense Is Not an Exception to the Case for Free Trade
The very best system of national defense is one that reduces the prospect of war. It is one that diminishes the need to actually send into battle war machines and manpower. So anyone sincerely committed to a program of using trade policy as a means of strengthening national defense supports as an indispensable cornerstone of that policy free trade.
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Five Strange Features of this Trade War
It’s worth reflecting on all the ways in which this trade war seems to depart from the historical pattern. They suggest something important: this trade war is born not of strategy but of ideology.
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Reform Army Corps to Cut Red Tape, Boost Outcomes
Ending military involvement in civilian navigation and public-waters regulation is one important step in any systematic reform to the scope of the federal government.
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Trade Retaliation Is Unjustified and Unjust
These foreign-government interventions supply no good ethical excuse for “retaliation.” In fact, losing nothing to which they are entitled, home-country producers themselves act unethically when they demand that the home government inflict upon fellow citizens the same unjust depravations that foreign governments inflict upon their citizens.
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Trade Wars and Inflation
Trump’s trade war is heating up. What should central banks do to ensure their economies aren’t damaged too much?
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