Quotation for the Day
6th April 2025
ZMan:
One of the amusing bits this week is how the kooks and lunatics all suddenly sounded like Milton Freidman when Trump announced his tariff policy. Suddenly people who often claim to be Marxists and anarchists were praising the glories of free markets. Some have enough self-awareness to see the problem, so they claim they oppose the tariffs because they are nationalist and you know who was a nationalist, so tariffs are fascism or something.
Most lack self-awareness, so they just screamed at the internet. The yesterday men of conservatism put on their knit ties and started chanting about Reagan. What they forget is Reagan used tariffs to protect American industry, despite opposing tariffs on theoretical grounds. In theory, a tariff free world might be the best, but we do not live in theory. We live in reality. The yesterday men always leave that part out when chanting about Reagan.
It all points to the fact that the old post-Cold War politics are spent. The people on the so-called left and right have nothing to offer. The kooks who used to distinguish themselves from the official left by championing populist items now oppose those items. They have no answer to Trump’s agenda because they have nothing to offer as an alternative. In the new politics, Trump is the radical overthrowing the old order and the self-styled radicals are the entrenched conservative interests.
None of this is to say the Trump agenda is flawless or that it will work. We are just getting started, so we shall have to wait and see how it unfolds. The basic scheme, however, is sound. American tariff policy will match the tariff schemes of other countries. If Canada wants to do business with us, they must negotiate a tariff schedule with Washington. It may be radically different from the one worked out with China, but Canada is not China.
The foundation of what Trump is doing is pragmatism. A good deal for Americans with regards to trading with Canada will always be different from what is good for Americans in a China deal. Rather than adhere to an ideological framework, economic policy will be situational. What is good now may not be good a year from now, so a year from now you will do something else. The radical idea at the heart of it all is realism. In an age drenched in ideology, reality is a radical idea.