Tag Archives: economy

American Opinion on the Deportations in Summer 2025.

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The country is deeply divided over the Trump administration’s treatment of illegal immigrants.  There doesn’t seem to be much resistance this time to closing down the Southern border.  The gap opens over what to do about the illegal immigrants who entered the country before the border got shut down.  Do all or most of them get to stay?  Do they all get deported without regard to how long they’ve been here or what role they now play in the economy? 

In June 2025, 52 percent of Americans supported deporting illegal immigrants.  The partisan divide was stark, but also revealing on minority positions within each party.  Those approving deportations included 90 percent of Republicans, but also 20 percent of Democrats.[1]  

Almost as many Americans (49 percent) said that President Trump had crossed some boundary of reasonableness in his sweeps and arrests. Thus, 50 percent of Americans disapproved of President Trump dispatching National Guard and even Marine units to Los Angeles to cow disorderly demonstrators protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducting sweeps for illegal immigrants.  Only a third (35 percent) of Americans approved of the deployment of military forces to deal with a civil policing matter.[2]    

If you desire the end, then you must desire also the means.  Either essentially half of Americans desire the end, but don’t want the reality of it shoved in their faces OR their desire for the end is purely rhetorical.  Hard to tell which is true.  Some of each?  Apparently, President Trump desires the end and accepts—even relishes–the means. 

The Republican opponents of deportation may largely represent businesses that depend upon illegal immigrants because many Americans have never known what hard work for low pay is really like.  The Democratic supporters of deportations provide a warning shot—if any more were needed after the election—of the fragility of the party’s coalition.

The 80 percent of Democrats who oppose deporting illegal immigrants doubtless have a variety of motives.  The illegals toil in vital sectors of the economy where the Native-born don’t want to work.  The illegals are in flight from Hell-hole countries (of which there are a great many).  They are just trying to make better lives.  Immigration is what made America great!  Ideally, there shouldn’t be any immigration restrictions at all, except for identifiable terrorists and criminals.  Broadly, on many issues, Democrats are cosmopolitans (citizens of the world and concerned for their fellow citizens) and Republicans are parochial (American citizens and concerned for their fellow citizens).  It will be difficult to reconcile those two positions. 

            In September 2025, the Supreme Court lifted a stay by a federal judge in California that had stopped Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from using ethnicity and language as partial grounds for stopping and detaining suspected illegal immigrants.  Some ethnicity and language communities in California “braced” for impact.  One apologist for the government argued that “[M]ost undocumented migrants in Los Angeles are Latino…”[3]  Fine, but most Latinos in Los Angeles are not “undocumented migrants.”  They still are subject to stops and detentions and “show us your papers.” 

[1] Reuters/Ipsos poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 27 June 2025, p. 17.

[2] Reuters/Ipsos poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 27 June 2025, p. 17. 

[3] The Week’s summary of Andrew McCarthy’s statement in National Review, in “Trump sends ICE into Chicago and Boston,” The Week, 19 September 2025, p. 4. 

Default Looms.

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            Government deficits are covered by borrowing.  The government issues I.O.U.s in the form of Treasury bonds and other paper.  The borrowing gets added to the existing government debt.  The interest paid on that debt then becomes a current government expenditure.  It’s the same as paying for the Department of Defense or Social Security or air-traffic control. For may decades, the “Big Three” of US government outlays has been Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and Defense.  (Together they accounted for about two-thirds of all federal spending.) 

            Then came Covid and shut-downs that threatened the economy.  Government, under both the Trump and Biden administrations, stepped up to the plate (or trough, if you’re a Paleo-Finance person).  Vast sums were paid out to “stimulate” the economy.  The total national debt now stands at more than $36 trillion. 

Inflation followed during the Biden administration.  Administration spokespeople down-played the price rises as long as they could.  Eventually, an election loomed.  The enraging effect on consumers and borrowers became too great to ignore.  The Federal Reserve Bank raised interest rates to choke off the inflation before it became really serious. 

            One effect (but not the only one) came in the borrowing costs paid by the government to entice lenders.  In 2024, interest payments by the federal government reached $881 billion.  Interest on the debt rudely shouldered its way past Defense as the third largest government expenditure.[1]  “But Wait!  There’s More!”  President Trump’s “Bigly Beautiful [Budget] Bill” has been projected to add $3 trillion to the debt by 2035.  Then the effect of tariffs on the economy is uncertain.  Economists expect the levies on imports to push up prices and slow the economy.  That would generate less revenue, perhaps less than the income from the tariffs. 

            Panicky warnings appeared in the media.  At some point, there could be a flight from US Treasuries by investors (including foreign governments that hold dollars) who doubt the value of promises to pay at least the interest.  The Federal Reserve Bank would have to raise interest rates much higher to rent the money to cover the interest on the debt or to finance current deficits.  Furthermore, government borrowing could crowd-out private sector borrowers who want the money to invest in productive activities.  That would drag on the economy, to put it mildly. 

            Is there a way out of this dilemma?  Yes.  It will require acting on both sides of the problem.  On the one hand, it means tax increases.  On the other hand, it means spending cuts. 

            Tax who and by how much?  The net worth (assets, not income) of the five richest Americans comes to about $1 trillion.[2]  The net worth of the next ten comes to about $1.1 trillion.  But income is what the government mostly taxes.  That’s much less than net worth. 

            Cut what and by how much?  To go where the money is, it means cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Defense, and Interest on the debt. 

            Both taxation and spending cuts will have to reach pretty far down into the ranks of the American middle class.  It will be hard to find politicians to vote for that.  The alternative is for ordinary American to suddenly abandon their “put it on the credit card” approach to citizenship.  Won’t happen.  Default looms.  After that, the International Monetary Fund will impose reforms. 

[1] “National debt: Why Congress no longer cares,” The Week, 6 June 2025, p. 17. 

[2] List of wealthiest Americans by net worth – Wikipedia 

How the US Lost Manufacturing 1.

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            How did the United States rise to economic and industrial predominance in the world?  First, the North American continent held a vast trove of natural resources of many kinds.  All that was needed was finding ways to extract and transform those resources.  Second, the country suffered from a perennial labor-scarcity.  Even massive immigration in the “long 19th Century” could not fill the breach, so Americans turned to technological and organizational innovations to increase productivity.  Third, all this took a great deal of capital.  The “Founders” created a pro-business environment that both helped generate American capital and attracted foreign (especially British) capital.  By the dawn of the 20th Century, the United States had the greatest industrial economy in the world.  The two World Wars laid low every other industrial country, while they strengthened that of the United States.  By mid-century, American industry (and agriculture, and finance, and science and technology) bestrode the world.  In one symbol of both the industrial power and the diversity of the American economy, about a third (35 percent) of all private-sector jobs were in manufacturing.[1]  This situation lasted through the end of the 1950s. 

            What were some results of that rise to predominance? 

            In the wake of the Second World War, the United States held a uniquely favorable position.  All of the other major industrial nations were either bankrupt or war-ravaged and bankrupt.  The Stalinist command-economy could compel Russians and conquered Eastern Europeans to make painful sacrifices to rebuild their economies without American aid.  Elsewhere (Western Europe, Japan) relied upon American assistance.  Later, the Americans added military protection against Soviet aggression. 

            The Americans used their leverage to remake the international economic system.  The “Bretton Woods System” (International Monetary Fund, World Bank); the first steps that would lead to the European Union; and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor the World Trade Organization (WTO) all came from American designs.  A progressively more “open” world economy came about between 1945 and 2025. 

            The Western European and Japanese economies revived with a speed that astonished people who had seen the wrecked economies and societies at war’s end.  They not only recovered, but generated an unprecedented and widespread prosperity.  It should be obvious, but may not be to most Americans, that the vast majority of this recovery and progress sprang from the hard work of the people who received American aid.  Especially in Germany and Japan, hard work, ready adaptation to new circumstances, and self-restraint became cultural values and not merely the harsh necessities of the moment.  These countries also built government systems of “social provision” that shocked many Americans. 

            How did the United States fall from that predominant position? 

            The economies that the United States had helped to revive began to become competitors.  This had always been expected, if only in some misty future.  First, they began to supply many of their own needs, then they began to compete in “third markets” (neither Western Europe, not America).  In Asia and Latin America, countries began to emulate the earlier industrializing countries.  Their initial advantage lay in very cheap labor.  They began by producing simple, non-durable goods at a very low cost for export to foreign markets, especially the American market. 

At the same time, from the mid-1960s onward, the American economy began to shift its center of gravity.  The service sector[2] began to grow rapidly.  Manufacturing held steady in numbers of employees until about 1980.  At the same time, manufacturers began the long trend toward shifting new production to the “Sun Belt,” especially the Southern states.[3] 

With an expanding service sector, Americans seem to have been ready to surrender the lowest level of manufacturing to foreigners in return for more stuff bought cheaper.  Those countries didn’t stay at the lowest level.  Having earned and learned from low-level industrialization, many of them sought to move up the food-chain.  South Korea, for example, developed a steel industry and a ship-building industry. 

            Then, beginning in 2001, China was admitted to the World Trade Organization.  China has an immense population.  Through the end of the Mao Zedong period, they were mostly trapped in low-productivity farming.  Post-Mao governments set out to change China in a more revolutionary and constructive way than Mao had ever imagined.  China would open its markets to foreign business, draw in foreign investment, shift its population from “the idiocy of rural life” to the “dark, Satanic mills” of new industrial cities, and conquer foreign markets for manufactured goods.  It took China less that a decade to surpass the United States as the world’s leading exporter of manufactured goods.  What the United States has retained and developed is its role as the leading exporter of services, including intellectual property.[4] 

In this account, the American economy shifted its chief function from extracting primary products (so, primary sector) to transforming them into finished goods (secondary sector) to providing diverse services (tertiary sector).  It’s easy to see this as a normative evolution of all capitalist economies.  American aid to Western Europe and Japan after the Second World War helped those places get back on track.  Similarly, American development aid assisted developing economies begin the path on which others were well-advanced.  Over the years, America shedding low-value industrial jobs and shifting people up the hierarchy into high value service jobs facilitated the global rise in development and living standards. 

Only in the case of post-Mao China did the institutions and policies created by the United States after the Second World War succeed all too well.  The “China Shock” wreaked havoc on American industry (and not only American industry).  That had painful social and economic consequences.  From one point of view, it had been impossible to foresee the scale and rapidity of China’s growth in manufacturing power.  So, is the problem how to return China to the old post-war model through practicing self-restraint and focusing on domestic consumers?  To become a “normal” nation in American terms? 

[1] Justin Lahart, “How the U.S. Slipped From Top Manufacturing Perch,” WSJ, 14 April 2025. 

[2] Doctors, lawyers, bankers, teachers, and so on, rather than just people “flipping hamburgers” as Mike Dukakis seemed to imagine. 

[3] In a sense, the Southern states were “developing economies” within America’s own borders.  Wages were lower, labor unions weren’t well-established, and state governments were pro-development.  For more, see: American Union, stay away from me uh. | waroftheworldblog 

[4] Justin Lahart, “How the U.S. Slipped From Top Manufacturing Perch,” WSJ, 14 April 2025.   

Q and A.

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            Question: How does a democratic society operate in a modern world characterized by highly complex systems.  Examples of such systems include the Economy, Science, Medicine, Transportation, International Relations and National Defense. 

            Answer: It functions through delegation.  Initially, such delegation took the form of elected representatives and through federalism.  Bit by bit over the last century, the important problems raised by increasing complexity, the “Seventy-Five Years War,” and the desire for truly national policies have expanded the delegation to subject-area Experts.  Some of this “Expertise” is housed within the federal departments and agencies, some of it in semi-independent organizations, some in colleges and universities, and some of it in private bodies.  Experts act as Stewards of these complex systems for the common good. 

            Question: What do the Experts get in exchange for operating their Stewardship? 

            Answer: “Honor, Power, Riches, Fame, and the Love of Women.”[1]  All in moderation or, at least, the appearance of moderation.  This is a version of the “Social Contract.” 

            Question: What happens if one party violates the “contract”?   

            Answer: The contract ceases to be enforceable on the other party.[2] 

            Question: Have the “Experts” violated the contract?  It seems to me that they have and repeatedly and egregiously.  There is a partial list of examples.[3] 

            Question: Has the mass of ordinary people violated the contract? 

            Answer: Maybe or Arguably, they have.  I’ve thought about the “Experts.”  They make an inviting target.  I haven’t thought as much about ordinary people.  I should.  Off the top of my head—or my grievance pile—there are the following observations:

            No one—regardless of social class or gender or sexual orientation, or ethnicity–wants to pay taxes, or serve in the military,[4] or serve on a jury. 

            Nobody seems to care about massive national debt that will lead to default. 

            We have an economy driven by the consumption of immense quantities of cheap garbage from Walmart, Amazon, and Apple. 

            The swelling numbers of people afflicted by obesity and Type II diabetes.  These are afflictions of choice, even if that choice is manipulated by Big Food. 

            The educational decline manifested in falling standardized test scores. 

            The fascination with celebrities, athletes, musicians, and other louts. 

            Today’s “common man” as a far cry from the “common man” of Aaron Copland’s day.[5]    

            Yes, I know: Curmudgeon yelling at the rain.  Doesn’t make me wrong. 

[1] Sigmund Freud, quoted by Ward Just in the story of the same title in Ward Just, Twenty-One Selected Stories (1990).   

[2] See: The Declaration of Independence. 

[3] What Should You Read? | waroftheworldblog 

[4] Well, since the creation of the “All Volunteer Force” at the end of the Vietnam War, about one percent of Americans have been willing to serve in the military.  These were not the dregs of society the common imagination.  Most often, they have been people from the South and West and often with some kind of family link to military service. 

[5] Fanfare for the Common Man – Aaron Copland 

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 19.

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            I think that Donald Trump is a bad man with some good ideas and some bad ideas.  He seems prone to stick with the bad ideas (and bad people, like Pete Hogwallop[1]) while rabbiting around on the good ideas.  He may well represent a threat to Democracy.  Or not.  His method, much more this term than in the first, is the bull-rush.  Doing “everything, everywhere, all at once.”  Testing, even blowing through, established limits of all sorts; moving very fast and keeping it up across time; forcing changes that may or may not endure.  He’s a wrecking ball and a disruptor, not a builder. 

            Trump also is not a “politician.”  In contemporary America, a “politician” is a career public employee who gets his/her/their contract renewed every 2, 4, or 6 years by playing it safe within the terms of their own constituency.  Most of them rise by following what the Romans used to call the “cursus honorum” (“course of honors/offices”).[2]  They’re committed to never doing anything “risky.”[3]  Trump thinks that these people are Nithings.[4]  He’s pretty much right about most of them.[5] 

            But what is the alternative to Trump?  Leave things the way they were?  Keep going along the same lines that produced gigantic deficits and a national debt that seems likely to end in default?  A creeping expansion of the Executive Branch and rule through regulation, executive orders, and executive agreements, rather than legislation?  A withering of the Legislative Branch through its own indifference to its responsibilities?  A well-advanced politicization of the Judicial Branch?  That’s going to end in the election of Supreme Court Justices.  An economy that prioritizes Finance over everything else, including Manufacturing?  A neglect of American military power in an era of rising danger?  A materialist, consumerist culture—against which Jimmy Carter warned long ago—that has reduced us to a “Country Made of Ice Cream”?  How is any of that going to be reformed in a timely fashion by continuing with “the way we do things around here”? 

[1] Start at 4:05.  Pa always said never trust a Hogwallop! 

[2] Cursus honorum – Wikipedia 

[3] The NYT is risk averse in its attitude toward change.  New York Times risky – Search

[4] Old English term.  See the first meaning given.  NITHING definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary 

[5] But not all of them.  Gina Raimondo for the Democrats and Mike Gallagher for the Republicans offer hope. 

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 18.

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            Americans have come to depend on cheap Chinese products.  Conversely, China has come to depend on massive exports of its goods to the United States.  Hence, President Donald Trump’s imposition of a 145 percent tariff on imports from China will shock both the American and Chinese systems.[1] 

            What does the United States get from China?  At least 75 percent of electric fans, dolls, video game consoles, tricycles, food processors, and smart phones.[2]  Apple, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard all source many of their products from Asia (China, Taiwan).  The tariffs could push the price of a basic iPhone 16 from $799 to $1,140.[3]  China also produces and exports renewable energy equipment, lithium batteries, and electric vehicles. 

            Much of the American reaction to the trade war with China has been “Eeeek!”  One newspaper warned  of “an economic crisis that could leave America poorer for generations.”  A West Coast port executive said that “essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers have ceased.”  As a result, one business economist[4] warned of “empty shelves in U.S. stores in a few weeks,” and “Covid-like shortages for consumers.”  These stoppages will cascade into job losses for longshoremen, truckers and railroads, and retail sales.[5] There could be a grievous toy shortage at Christmas because 80 percent of America’s toys are made in China.[6] 

What does China get from the United States?  Soybeans.  Some kinds of computer chips.  And many jobs.  All the stuff no longer going to America either has to be sold somewhere else, or stock-piled in warehouses, or not made at all.  Neither of the last two is sustainable, politically or economically, for long.  So China has to find a new target for its exports. 

Which country will blink first?  Is there a reasonable compromise that can be negotiated? 

Trump has wobbled on China to a degree.  He exempted some consumer electronics (smart phones, laptops) from most of the China tariffs.  He also indicated that he was ready to negotiate with China and that Xi Jinping had called him.  At the same time, he seems determined to “decouple” the economies of the two countries.[7]  At the very least, he said, “China will probably eat those tariffs.  Everything is going to be fine.” 

For their part, the Chinese seem not to have anticipated the “speed and ferocity” of the American trade counter-attack on China’s economic strategy.[8]  China’s public response has been to dig in.  “Bowing to a bully is like drinking poison to quench thirst.”[9]  Threats of retaliation abound.  When Trump said that Xi Jinping had called about tariffs, the Chinese Foreign Ministry basically called Trump a liar.  Hard to know which of those two to believe. 

[1] “Decoupling: The U.S.-China trade divorce, The Week, 25 April 2025, p. 34.    

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Inflation: How tariffs could push up prices,” The Week, 18 April 2025, p. 17.    

[4] As in an economist employed by a business, in this case an asset management firm. 

[5] “Trump shrugs off warnings over trade war costs,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 4. 

[6] Feels heartless denying kids their hearts’ desire at Christmas.  Still, Boxing Day can be a time for repentance. 

[7] The historian Stephen Kotkin has observed that Trump often talks out of both sides of his mouth, but if you look at what he actually does, you can tell what he really means.  His remarks bore on Iran’s nuclear program.  He thinks Trump means to stop it, whatever that may require.  There’s no reason not to apply the same view to China trade. 

[8] “Decoupling: The U.S.-China trade divorce, The Week, 25 April 2025, p. 34. 

[9] Given China’s behavior toward its neighbors in Taiwan and the Philippines, this is comic. 

China Tariff Shock.

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            Once upon a time, people harbored high hopes for post-Mao China.[1]  The country adopted “market socialism,” invited Western capital and experts to facilitate its transition to participant in the global economy, and sent many of its own best and brightest to study and work in Western countries.  Employing a very simplified understanding of the West’s own history, people conjectured that a market economy would grow, enrich, and make assertive a middle class that would insist upon a more responsive government.  China would “Westernize.” 

            To accelerate this process, in 2001, China won admission to the World Trade Organization (W.T.O, successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, G.A.T.T).  “It did not have the effect that Long Shanks planned.”[2]  Instead, for ten years, cheap Chinese goods deluged foreign markets.  In the United States, 2.4 million jobs were lost, a million of them factory jobs.  All this happened between 2001 and 2011, and it kept happening at a slower pace afterward.  In 2019, China earned a trade surplus with the rest of the world of more than $500 billion.  Nobody did anything about it.  Why not?  Well, the price of many consumer goods fell.  Consumption increased for many people.  The number of service jobs increased, so lots of people weren’t working in factories, “dark, satanic” or otherwise.  “We’re doing better, right?”[3] 

            Since 2020, China has pursued a major export offensive on top of this already large volume of exports.  It has done so by subsidizing manufacturers of its already low-cost products to the tune of $1.9 trillion over four years. 

In one sense, the offensive has succeeded: in 2024 it earned a surplus of almost $1 trillion.  Since 2013, China has deployed much of its new-found wealth to entangle other counties in a complicated relationship that makes tariff retaliation against China difficult.[4]

In another sense, the offensive has failed: it has aroused international alarm and resistance.  Beyond the United States, the affected industries range from Indonesian textile factories to the German auto industry.  The first phase of the counter-attack against China’s trade offensive appeared in President Donald Trump’s first term with tariffs on China.  These were retained by the Biden administration.  The Chinese responded by moving some of its production “off-shore’ to other countries like Vietnam and Thailand, Turkey and Hungary, and—of course—Mexico.[5]  Trump’s second term began with new and gigantic tariffs on China, but also on many other countries. 

The American tariffs close off an estimated $400 billion in sales to the American market.  If China can’t cut back production, those goods will have to go elsewhere.  Other countries have begun to follow Trump’s lead.  They are hampered by those previously-established economic relationships with China. 

            Trump’s tariff barrage is best understood not as the start of a “Trade War.”  It’s best understood as a counter-attack in a trade war that has already been going on.  It’s a trade war which the United States and many other countries have been losing.  Through not fighting back. 

[1] “China Shock 2.0” The Week, 25 April 2025, p. 11. 

[2] Reference to another Mel Gibson historical wish-it-had-been-this-way mess. 

[3] To belabor the obvious, both the job losses and the failure of solidarity eventually had large political effects. 

[4] See: Belt and Road Initiative – Wikipedia 

[5] See: How Chinese firms are using Mexico as a backdoor to the US 

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 17.

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            Has the post-Second World War period of ever-increasing “globalization”[1] come to an end?  If it has, then what will replace it?  Will it be a return to widespread “protectionism”?[2]  Will it be a restricted and managed globalization within large economic blocs protected by a high common external tariff? 

            Some will attribute the troubled state of international affairs to President Donald Trump’s rash and unsteady imposition of tariffs on anyone who crosses his line of sight.  In this view, “more trade is better, especially for the United States.”[3]  Trump’s tariffs will push up prices for consumers while slowing down economic activity.  It will make it “more costly for U.S. manufacturers to source vital parts and machinery.”  The result may be “stagflation” (stagnation plus inflation), such as what beset America in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[4]

One could also attribute the smoldering crisis to a long-running combination of Chinese aggression with American complacency. 

            Chinese aggression should and does strike fear in the hearts of men.  China has used hard work, the mobilization of national talents, the repression of consumption below what might have been, the conversion of a vast population of under-employed peasants turned into tireless industrial workers, borrowed Western expertise, intellectual property theft on a grand scale, manipulation of the international trade regime, the repression of individual liberty by an autocratic state, and appeals to national pride.  Economic power has been transformed into military and diplomatic power.  China has begun to throw its weight around in the Far East and beyond.  The goal seems to be to evict the United States from the Western Pacific.  That would be a first step to establishing Chinese hegemony over South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam.[5]  On the other hand, there’s a particularly American character to China’s policy.  As the political philosopher George Washington Plunkitt once said, “I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.”[6]   

            The manifestations of American complacency appear in the triumphalism following victory in the Cold War;[7] the misinterpretation of Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man Standing; the combination of a long decrease in defense spending to yield a “Peace Dividend”; and the cornucopia of material benefits unleashed by ever more free trade.  Toy shops and coffee shops and retirement savings will now suffer.  Nobody wants discomfort.    

[1] Defined as progressive rounds of reducing barriers to trade, finance, and migration. 

[2] Defined as individual nations or blocs of nations raising up tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade, combined with restrictions on the movement of capital and people. 

[3] Republican Yoda Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal, quoted in “Global order: Goodbye to the age of free trade?”, The Week, 18 April 2025, p. 34. 

[4] Tom Orlik in Bloomberg, quoted in ibid. 

[5] Strategists refer to Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines as the “First Island Chain.”  South Korea and Vietnam can be considered the mainland anchors of this chain.  Together, they provide the geographic positions from which to limit Chinese power projection.  The loss of that island chain to Chinese domination would cripple both American trade relations with those countries and power projection.  For some idea of how the United States reached this advantageous position, see Evan Mawdsley, Supremacy at Seas: Task Force 58 and the Central Pacific Victory (2025). 

[6] “I Seen My Opportunities and I Took ‘Em.”: An Old-Time Pol Preaches Honest Graft 

[7] Queen – We Are The Champions (Live Aid 1985) 

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 16.

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            The United States and China continued hammering each other in mid-April 2025.  Both countries raised their tariffs on each other (the US to 145 percent and China to 125 percent).  China barred is airlines from taking delivery of Boeing jets and its rare-earth and magnet producers from exporting to the United States; while the United States tightened the screws on AI technology exports to China.  The United States showed some interest in negotiating, but China wouldn’t bite.[1] 

            The incoherence of the Trump administration’s tariff policy with regard to the rest of the world flooded into the China policy.  President Donald Trump said that there would be no “carve-outs,” then crawfished again.  There would be only a 20 percent tariff on cell phones, laptops, and modems.  Then he crawfished again: new tariffs on electronics and semi-conductors would soon be announced. 

            Regardless of their incoherence, the main point in the eyes of some critics lay in the pain that they inflict on ordinary Americans.  Tariffs will force up prices and disrupt supply-chains.  “Mom-and-pop shops that rely on Chinese imports” will suffer.[2]  “Mom-and-Pop!  Their lives of hard work and service to the local community wrecked by Trump’s tariffs!”  Well, actually, most of the Mom-and-Pop stores got destroyed decades ago by Walmart and Amazon.  This is just evoking a nostalgic image for lack of a good argument. 

            Other critics warned that the tariffs will just make China mad.  It will retaliate in ways that hurt Americans and America.  China can restrict exports (as with rare earths and high-end magnets); China can blacklist American firms, driving down their profits and the value of their stocks; China could sell off a part or all of its $760 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds. 

            They aren’t drawing the logical conclusion.  First, we’re very vulnerable to Chinese pressure and, to some degree, dependent upon Chinese good will to fend off disaster.  So we should make nice?  How about we remember the old adage that “If I owe you $100, then I have a problem; if I owe you $1 million then you have a problem”?    

            Rare earths and magnets are described as “critical to manufacturing everything from cars and planes to drones and weapons systems.” So we are dependent on our chief rival for these goods?  In case of open conflict, or even just tense bargaining over important issues, China could boycott their export to the United States?  With what effect on our ability to produce “cars and planes… drones and weapons systems”?  OK, suppose we got into a dispute not with China, but with China’s ally Russia?  I know that’s far-fetched, but give me some rope here.  Say Russia attacked Ukraine.  Would fear of China withholding key resources cause us to support Ukraine less fully than we could do and might want to do?  In any case, would it be a good idea to try to regain our technology industrial independence? 

            Second, the United States isn’t really hammering China with tariffs.  Almost alone and in his usual rabbity fashion, Donald Trump is hammering China.  Lots of right-thinking people are trying to distance themselves from a president engaged in a trade war with our deadly enemy in economy and international relations.  Who do you think Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and Australia would want to win that one, if they have to choose?  Who would you choose? 

[1] “Trade war with China threatens U.S. economy,” The Week, 25 April 2025, p. 5.    

[2] New York Post, quoted in “Trade war with China threatens U.S. economy,” The Week, 25 April 2025, p. 5. 

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 15.

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            Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has led the way in the construction of an international economic system based on “relatively free trade bound to relatively predictable governance and the rule of law.”[1]  Along the way, according to some critiques, America’s trading partners have exploited the system to America’s disadvantage.  Now, President Donald Trump has alleged that many of America’s trading partners engage in “unfair trade practices.”[2]  In early April 2025, Trump imposed a 10 percent basic tariff on all imports, plus additional tariffs as high as 50 percent on other countries.[3] 

            The reaction to this announcement got ugly: the stock market lost $10 trillion; China imposed a retaliatory 84 percent tariff on imports from America; and all sorts of people howled.  JPMorgan said the tariffs would probably cause a recession; and Lawrence Summers, the former Secretary of the Treasury and former President of Harvard University known for giving it with the bark on, predicted such a recession would cost 2 million Americans their jobs.  Other critics argued that the tariffs would dismantle the American-led international economic system.  Who will profit?  China will profit, because all the countries bruised by American tariffs and incoherence might look to China as a new leader.  Xi Jinping “is unlikely to miss the priceless opportunity Trump has given him.”  Really?  China will abandon its long-running policy of repressing domestic consumption and conquering foreign markets in order to replace the Americans as the world’s leading consumer-nation? 

            Then Trump abruptly crawfished, suspending the implementation of his “additional” tariffs on most countries for 90 days.  For these countries, the administration was willing to negotiate, if they wanted to do so.  However, he jacked up the tariff on Chinese goods to 125 percent in retaliation for China’s retaliation for Trump’s initial tariff increase.  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that trade negotiations had been the plan all along.[4]

            Critics on left and right belabored the incoherence of the tariffs.  Acknowledging that criticism to be on-target still leaves a question.[5]  Is it useful to distinguish between Trump’s tariffs policy toward China and Trump’s tariff policy toward the rest of the world?  Trump has flip-flopped on everyone except China.  With China, he has doubled-down.  That country produces many goods that were invented in America and are important consumer goods, like cell and computers. 

What is wrong-headed about Trump’s tariff war is that he has not offered a coherent plan to rally the rest of the world against the Chinese export giant while negotiating tariff equality with America’s other trading partners.  China has been steam-rolling many countries.  There is a lot of fear and resentment directed at China abroad in the world.  The makings are there for a better American-led system. 

[1] Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner, quoted in “Trump dials down tariffs, but not for China,” The Week, 18 April 2025, p. 4.  On the institutional structure of the American-led, rules-based order, see: Bretton Woods system – Wikipedia; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade – Wikipedia ; and World Trade Organization – Wikipedia 

[2] If he means that other countries impose higher tariffs on American goods than America imposes on goods from those countries and/or they raise up other “non-tariff barriers,” then he’s pretty much right. 

[3] “Trump dials down tariffs, but not for China,” The Week, 18 April 2025, p. 4. 

[4] Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (3/10) Movie CLIP – I Meant to Do That (1985) HD 

[5] I’m willing to stipulate that it is an ignorant, probably stupid, question.  But I want to ask it all the same.