Tag Archives | Tariff

ELEMENTARY textbooks in economics invariably begin with a completely mythical concept: the concept of “perfect competition”, which is different from the concept of “free competition” that the classical economists and Marx had used.

A cornerstone of Donald Trump’s economic policies is tariffs. Claiming that just about every country in the world has ripped off the United States—even stating that the European Union was established to do this—he sees tariffs as a way for the U.S. to get even.

Donald Trump’s top economic advisor Stephen Miran revealed that Washington’s strategy is to use tariffs to force countries to pay the USA tribute to maintain its global financial and military empire. This is the idea behind the so-called “Mar-a-Lago Accord”.

It is important for an intellectual position not only to be right but to be right for the right reasons; and the near-universal condemnation of Donald Trump’s aggressive imposition of tariffs, though right, is right for the wrong reasons.

The imposition of the new U.S. tariff regime unveiled by President Trump yesterday is a declaration of economic war against the rest of the world.