Peter Navarro is crazy and should be shown the door.  The whole idea that trade deficits are bad.. is 100% contrary to Milton Friedman arguments which they are not.  Here he lays out the correct case at Kansas State in 1978.  “Economist agree since Adam Smith that Free Trade is good.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJCeoFxrDn0

Freidman was wrong about steel and letting a Countrry.. at the time he was talking about Japan.. Today we would say that allowing China to gut our industrial base and build a military power was.. wrong.

Other than that.. Friedman is totally correct.

Since allowing trade with China.. The US ag economy has increased mainly land values by $1 Trillion and the US stock market has gone up 3500%

No doubt that the US has benefited from Globalism.

I haven’t posted much about this.. but if we follow Navarro.. we’ll see a Covid sized sell off with Covid sized shortages.

If instead Trump uses these as transactional.. and negotiates.. he can claim a win.. maybe come out to a net positive.  ???  And go back to what’s left of a booming economy.

If not.. it’ll get worse.

These are a very good critique of why it’s bad to do what Navarro has conned Trump into trying.


https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2025/04/08/15-reasons-tariffs-mistake

 It's not hard to make the case for bringing factories back to the United States. It's likewise not hard to understand that some carefully targeted tariffs, especially when coupled with other industrial-policy measures, would give this "reshoring" a boost.

It's impossible to make the case for very high tariff levels on everything made by almost every country on earth. There are a great many things wrong with what this administration is doing. Let me count the ways.

One:..

Nine: High and broad tariffs may well reduce U.S. trade deficits, but they'll do that by slowing the economy's growth or even bringing on a recession. Tariffs discourage consumption by making imported products more expensive and allowing domestic competitors to raise prices. Economist Richard Katz noted that over the last six decades, the U.S. trade deficit has declined in years when economic growth slowed and increased when the economy grew faster.
..

Fifteen: If other countries are forced to trade less with the U.S., with whom do you think they'll trade more -- and have closer relations with? Yes, China.

I am sympathetic to the goal of doing more manufacturing in the U.S. These tariffs are not the way to do it.

yup. 

“Tariffs succeed in protecting consumers from low prices.”

why are we doing this?