Tariffs

President Donald Trump has set Saturday as the deadline to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports. From the Oval Office earlier this week, Trump explained that the move aims to push the US’s neighbors to take swift action to curtail illegal immigration and fentanyl, as well as to address growing trade deficits. The tariffs may or may not include oil, with Trump saying Thursday that determinations were still being made. Following Trump’s tariff feud with Colombian president Gustavo Petro Sunday, with the Trump forcing his Colombian counterpart to welcome deportees, his latest move signifies an expansion of his revamped “FAFO” foreign policy.

Election aftermaths are always an opportunity for taking stock. Since the 2022 midterms, we’ve heard prominent Republicans stressing the need to revisit questions ranging from electoral strategy to how to engage the culture wars. What desperately needs discussion on the American right, however, is conservatism’s approach to economic policy. Since 2015, American conservatives have been deeply divided over economics. Conservative skepticism about markets predates Donald Trump, but there’s little question that Trump shattered the favorable views of free markets that had prevailed since Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

There’s an automotive parts manufacturer in my hometown. The company has grown over the course of its 19-year life, from around 20 employees two decades ago to 45 full-time employees today. Despite the dirty nature of much of the work, the facility is kept clean, open, airy, and bright. There are no shavings on the floor or fumes in the air. The men who weld, bend, blast, and powder coat the metal parts and send them to the warehouse for packaging and shipment do so energetically. “Honestly, [the work] is very satisfying,” the shop’s lead welder, Joe, told me during a recent tour of the facility. “I’ve always wanted to do things with my hands, and I’ve always enjoyed welding.

My father was born in 1948. He’s the same age as Jackson Browne: ’65 I was 17, ’69 I was 21. His plan was to graduate from his Western Pennsylvania public high school and join the Marine Corps. The local draft board came damn close to saving him the trouble of enlisting. But near the end of his high school career, it was discovered that his girlfriend was “in a family way.” His parents briefly floated the idea of obtaining an illegal abortion. Fortunately, my 17-year-old father, his soon-to-be in-laws, and his Episcopal priest (in those days such men could be depended upon) stood firm. He and his girlfriend were married. Soon after, my half-brother was born and my father enrolled in an apprenticeship program with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

China’s various human rights abuses, their treatment of women, their savagery toward religious people and their chokehold on Taiwan and Hong Kong, has long made them a target for economic boycotts by Westerners. But executing a successful one is exceedingly difficult to achieve. In 2003, disappointed that the George W. Bush administration reaffirmed their ‘One China’ policy in regards to Taiwan, I launched my own boycott of Chinese goods. It was difficult but felt worthwhile to spend extra time looking for the ‘made in’ label on goods I was buying. And then I needed a shower curtain. I visited store after store and could not find one made anywhere except in China. I lived without a curtain for months before giving in and buying a Chinese-made one.

If Donald Trump wanted to deliver a seasonal gift to his ‘good friend’ Xi Jinping, the ‘Phase One’ trade deal reached this weekend fits the bill pretty well.  From the viewpoint of the Beijing leadership, it vindicates the Chinese refusal to budge during the long months of trade negotiations despite the threat of escalating duties. What has resulted is less the kind of overall trade agreement originally aimed at by the Trump administration and feared by China as interference in its economy —  and more of a purchase agreement accompanied by reduced tariffs.

Ever since Donald Trump began his trade war with China there have been two possibilities: firstly, that he intends tariffs to form a permanent feature of the landscape in relations between the US and China: a protectionist device designed to protect American jobs indefinitely; or secondly, that he sees his tariffs as a shock tactic devised to draw China into talks which it would otherwise be loathe to join, and with the ultimate aim of freeing up trade. The latest development, halving a set of tariffs which had been in place since September and canceling another set which had been due to come into place this week, points heavily to the latter.

I was poking at a dessicated branzino at the Union League yesterday, half-listening to a schoolmate drone on about international alternatives, when he mentioned off-hand that the United States and France are gearing up for a trade war. Bordeaux could cost a bomb; brie could break the bank. I dare say, it shook me to my coeur. Thank God it’s not Sancerre season. They’re decorating the club for Christmas, so I worried I was delirious from the smell of brass polish. I excused myself and discreetly logged on to see that, alas, the dreadful news is true. It’s bad enough that they’re banning foie gras in New York, which is as civilized as burning churches. Now the feds are getting in on the act too.

It’s near the witching hour as the wolves begin to howl, the Tasmanian devil spins itself into a frenzy, and the red-eyed tree frog blinks into glass. The zoo is oddly quiet as US commandos (trained in zoology) scale the walls and deploy a well-placed and tiny explosive gum inside the lock to pop open the enclosure. The sleepy giant simply rolls over with dreams of bamboo and blasé dancing in its head. A bearded captain pulls out a black sack and pulls it over the animal’s head as they tranquilize the heavy sleeper — the panda rendition is complete. That’s right, I am proposing kidnapping the American domiciled pandas to expedite an end to the US-China trade war.

Of all the 9/11 conspiracy stories, one of the most persistent is the suggestion that al-Qaeda funded its operations by short-selling the shares of airline companies in the days before the attack. Inevitably, airline shares plummeted that day, netting short-sellers vast profits. While there was an increase in short-selling before the attack, no-one has proved one way or the other whether that was history’s most audacious case of insider-dealing or just a reaction to an industry which was already in trouble for purely commercial reasons. But is someone now trying on the same trick with the US-China trade war?