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Free-Market Donald
Donald Trump was the most free-market-oriented president we’ve had since Ronald Reagan, and the economy showed it. Probably because of his rhetoric, many people don’t know about the Donald’s free-market proclivities. The people that don’t know about it seem to fall into two major categories:
- Ardent Trump supporters.
- Ardent Trump haters.
Protectionism prevents President Trump from being a free-market purist, but he was more marketed oriented than his four predecessors. Some, though not all, of that protectionism was justified for strategic and moral reasons.
It was the free-market side of his policies that made the economy roar. Rich, poor, corporations, workers, and people of all races benefitted. Not to mention all 37 genders. Of course, the Left will reverse it all in the name of Compassion.
It is heart-breaking to see Trump’s strongest supporters reject the free market.
Exhibit A is Tucker Carlson. Tucker has many virtues, particularly his Limbaugh-esque ability to highlight the Left’s absurdities. Tucker is an asset to conservatism, but he’s out to lunch on economics. I’m grateful it was Trump, and not Tucker, managing economic policy during the Trump years. Another example is Pedro Gonzales, who writes for American Greatness. Mr. Gonzales likes to blame all kinds of things on the free market, including the Texas power outages.
Many Republican Trump-haters see themselves as free-market supporters. Some are, but many supported Bush’s re-regulation of the economy and the bailouts he did at the end. They couldn’t distinguish between capitalism and crony capitalism.
And then there’s the oleaginous Mr. Romney … Where do I begin?
There will be many debates about what aspects of Trumpism we should keep. Willingness to fight back should be at the top of the list, and support for free markets should near the top.
Free market concepts might not get us elected, but their abandonment will get us un-elected. People respond to results, and screwing up the economy is always bad politics, especially for conservatives.
Published in General
I can forgive Trump’s protectionism because he changed the strategic conversation about China. The days of hoping China will liberalize through inclusion in global institutions is over. We needed someone to disabuse us of that optimism, and surely that was one of Trump’s major foreign policy successes.
At least for people who are willing to accept that lesson. It seems like a lot of people, probably including those in the Biden administration, aren’t.
I am not optimistic about the Biden Administration, and their spending bills so far have been nothing short of disgraceful. But I think they might continue the Trump policy on China. SoS Blinkin has had some harsh things to say about China recently, and I think there is bipartisan recognition that China is an enemy.
Unless, being kind of the opposite of Trump who might have said some “nice things” about people like Xi publicly while being hard on them more privately, with Biden they’ll talk tough while making deals in secret.
No matter what Blinken may say, I kind of expect Biden to fully cave-in to whatever China may demand. Biden has already dismissed the Chinese internment and genocide against the Uighurs as a “different norm,” and made excuses for their behavior. He’s not even strong enough to criticize them, let alone take any decisive action.
I distinguish between Market and Trade (macro).
Markets, to me, are the domestic trades done within a country, where everyone is subjected to the same regulations, labor, and cost of living/business systems. Free Market principals seek to help domestic trade thrive through lower regulation, taxes, and other domestic policies.
Trade, on the other hand, requires interfacing between countries. One country’s market policies are different from another’s. It is a tool of diplomacy and foreign affairs. While trade has economic benefits, it also increases other vulnerabilities.
For Trade to be truly free, you would need a governing force over all of the countries to be in charge of making regulatory, taxation, and policy uniform.
Since I am vehemently anti one world government, I’m very anti Free Trade. I am pro-Trade as a foreign policy tool, but I am intensely hostile to forces pushing us to a global government and Free Trade is one of the policies that has pushed us far closer to a global order.
I anticipate eventually my argument will lose this debate in the short term. I expect history will prove me right.
Biden policy will be based on the amount of cash his cronies get paid.
These are vital distinctions and I agree with you.
A thoughtful comment, but I’d like to bring up a couple things:
Sorry but I just don’t have a big problem with government saying, for example, “trading with a country whose people are not free, whose government uses slave/prison/child labor to take advantage and eventually perhaps conquer us, is not permitted, no matter how profitable it may be for YOU.”
Like I said in item #1. “Such restrictions may be justified in some cases. “
The way the world is now, that’s actually a whole lot of cases.
The list is long. It’s why we have sanctions against Iran and other countries. Unfortunately Biden will probably undo that one.
The irony of this is that if the government can restrict who we trade with, then we are the ones who are not free! I think we should promote free trade as much as possible, but I would allow for limited national security exceptions, like the case of China. I see no reason why we should be restricted from buying Chinese flip-flops, but there is a case to limit trade with Chinese tech companies.
It actually used to be a lot worse. More than half of the world used to live under Communism or other tyrannical regimes.
Can we trust China to not put coronavirus or worse, in their cheap flip-flops?
Too easily traced, I think. :-)
To augment your point, I would add that trade occurs between individuals rather than countries. The United States doesn’t buy Corona beer from Mexico. Individuals and private businesses in the United States by Corona beer from breweries in Mexico, through middlemen.
Would free-traders support trade with, say, the antebellum South?
In effect, they would be trading in stolen goods — stolen from the slaves.
When the antebellum South was still antebellum, we were all in the same country. There was all kinds of trade between North and South. When the war started, I would bet that most of the trade stopped. In fact the North blockaded the South.
15 years ago I would have agreed with you, before I spent my last few years working for a global company, traveling the world and seeing the impact of the hollowing out of American industry and what happened to some of the communities and people left behind. Everywhere else in the world I encountered business people who certainly did business in many places but took it as a matter of national pride what they were doing to help their own countries. You didn’t see that in many American business people who were often embarrassed to be American and focused on globalization not their own country. It changed my mind.
What I most appreciated about Trump’s approach to the global economy was his American First approach. Sometimes his protectionist approach was a blunderbuss and sometimes he misfired but it was better than the GOP mantra of tax cuts, free trade, and whatever the Chamber of Commerce wants. The economics first crowd lost sight of what makes America and instead let the country’s institutions rot away.
And now we see the big corporate world turning on conservatives, endorsing the viewpoint of the New Racists, supporting a New American Order where expressing a non-Progressive opinion will get you fired, end a career, lose educational opportunities for your children.
And the GOP ticket to success is going to be corporate tax cuts and free markets? We are simply going to look at what the corporate world is doing to us, smile and say “Thank you, may I have another?” That would make us chumps.
We need to stop dealing with theory and meaningless slogans about free markets and get real about politics and building new coalitions or else we will be completely irrelevant.
Yes and I think it remains dangerously naive to figure that only “national security” issues should matter when it comes to trade, stuff like our military depending on China for many raw materials and even computer chips etc. The evidence is that most if not all trade has some impact on what amounts to “national security” in the long run.
I’m not sure I get your reasoning. Are you saying that because you saw American businessmen who were not proud of their country, it changed your mind about free trade? If so, I don’t get how one affects the other. Maybe there are more details.
Maybe it’s that kind of “free trade” that somehow eventually CAUSES those people to lose interest in their own country?
What was the biggest legislative achievement during the Trump administration? And something most Republicans repeatedly point to as the thing that made the economy better during his term?
Tax cuts are necessary, but far from sufficient. The problem comes from those who seem to think that (pretty much) ONLY tax cuts are needed, and everything else will somehow take care of itself.
Or maybe it’s because thy showed their loyalty, or rather their disloyalty to their own people.
Well they may have started out loyal, but if they’re shown that they can do better by being disloyal – and that nobody seems to mind, indeed they officially seem to encourage it – it’s not too surprising that many turn to The Dark Side.
@Baker, if I understand your comment, you got right to the point of my post. The reason the economy grew under Trump is that he went straight to that “tired old mantra of tax cuts and deregulation” and enacted it. It worked. It also hadn’t been done in any meaningful way since the Reagan administration.
Once a government has done its basics, like establish a currency and some ground rules, there is nothing else it can do to create jobs or make the economy grow. The government can only harm the economy – not help it. Elected officials that are credited with restoring a robust economy accomplished it not by making the government do something, but by removing or reducing government imposed impediments. Tax cuts and deregulation reduce those impediments.
Trump understands this, seemingly more than he is willing to admit. I wish his political heirs would understand the same thing.
Too many in DC especially don’t understand the simple maxim, “Don’t just do something! Stand there!”