In
one of National Review’s hit pieces against Republican presidential frontrunner
Donald Trump (“What Trump Doesn’t Understand – It’s a lot about our Trade
with China”), correspondent Kevin D. Williamson called Trump a
“dangerous buffoon” because he would threaten tariffs upon China’s products and
thus risk a trade war with China. But it’s not Trump who is the buffoon
on trade; it is National Review!
Trump
plans to take on the huge U.S. trade deficit with the world, and especially
with China. He threatens to place upon Chinese products a tariff like the
45% tariff that China recently placed upon some U.S. cars. Such a threat
could lead to negotiations between the U.S. and China about balancing trade,
and Trump wrote the book on negotiations………..
The purpose of trade is to exchange an
amount of goods and services that a country considers less valuable for an
amount of goods and services that it considers more valuable. Economists
are unanimous that both countries benefit when trade is balanced.
But
the trade deficits that the U.S. has experienced for decades have converted the
U.S. from the world’s leading creditor nation to the world’s leading debtor and
have caused the loss of millions of American manufacturing jobs, have reduced
American power, and have retarded U.S. economic growth.
Williamson
and National Review would let totalitarian China continue to expand
its trade surplus with the United States and eventually replace the U.S. as the
world’s premier economic and political power. They consider their
position “conservative.”
But
Trump is right to seek balanced trade with China. He could get the
negotiations going by threatening to impose our Scaled Tariff. And if the
negotiations were to fail, the Scaled Tariff would balance trade regardless.
