“trade isn’t some state-level exchange in which one government mugs another. It takes place voluntarily between individuals and businesses.”
…
“”In their criticism of global trade and imports, Vance and the GOP platform don’t mention several important things: the American consumer, private property, and the freedom that people should enjoy to voluntarily exchange goods and services,” he noted. “Some folks call this liberty and the pursuit of happiness: people freely choosing to buy and sell what they want, not what the government dictates.”
And what do we call voluntary exchanges between willing participants? Well, as economist Roy Cordato wrote for the John Locke Foundation in 2018, “all trade, by definition, is reciprocal. It is best to think of a trade as simply two parties coming together for mutual gain with each of them giving up something that they possess for something that they want more.”
So, in order to eliminate trade deficits with other nations that aren’t really a problem to begin with, the Trump administration is hiking tariffs to raise the cost of imported goods so that Americans will buy less of them. That’s interference in the free reciprocal exchanges chosen by consumers and businesses. And the price of that interference comes out of Americans’ pockets. That’s because, as the Tax Foundation’s Alex Durante warns, tariffs are taxes that, while partially paid by foreign firms, are mostly a burden for people in the countries that impose them—especially as they rise to the heights we now see.
“If the US imposes a large enough tariff, the resulting reduction in economic activity would also entail a meaningful increase in unemployment,” adds Durante.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/04/all-trade-is-reciprocal-trumps-tariffs-interfere-with-that-reciprocity/
“The Trump administration has, for the fourth time in history, invoked the war-time Alien Enemies Act of 1798, even though our nation is not at war—and its last use remains one of the most shameful episodes in American history.
That involved President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 in 1942. It was the basis for the internment of around 112,000 people of Japanese descent, 70,000 of whom were American citizens.”
…
“For years, we’ve endured constitutional conservatives’ bloviating about the importance of protecting the sacred principles enshrined in our Constitution. Those include the separation of powers—legislative, executive and judicial checks on one another—and due process. Many of these hypocrites are defending the administration’s policies and bashing a judge for halting the hasty airlift of accused criminal aliens to a prison run by a banana-republic strongman—a directive the president promptly ignored.
Perhaps most of these deportees are criminals and a threat (unlike peaceful Japanese residents who posed no threat whatsoever). They still deserve due process—their day in court, so to speak—to prove they have indeed violated the law. Constitutional conservatives of all people should understand that the government gets things wrong and individuals deserve protection from arbitrary actions by its agents.
We’ve already seen examples of immigrants who were deported based on the government allegedly mistaking a soccer tattoo for gang insignia. Let’s say you were walking around and, based on your attire or ethnic background, the police suspected you were a gang-banger and took you to jail. Wouldn’t your first call be to your lawyer? Don’t you deserve due process to prove you were a passerby before being shipped to Pelican Bay? (And non-citizens generally are considered persons under the Constitution—and also deserve due process.)
The administration isn’t just ignoring these constitutional due-process protections but seems to be actively mocking them. “What were all these young women that were killed and raped by members of (Tren de Aragua)—what was their due process?”” asked Tom Homan, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Murder and rape always are horrific, but everyone still gets a trial to, you know, prove they actually committed the crime.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/04/the-alien-enemies-act-is-an-unconstitutional-affront-to-civil-liberties/
Private equity have purchased nursing homes, sold their assets like their facilities, then leased these facilities from who they sold them to, they pocket the cash from the sale, buy more properties, then use market power to drive down expenses, then use the profits to get the nursing homes to take a loan and pocket that cash, the nursing home is strained by all these burdens, but who cares when private equity already made money. Such activity may have caused 20,000 premature deaths over 12 years as service quality is cut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Kdv1t0NsE
During the campaign, Trump said, as a result of tariffs, Americans won’t have higher prices, but foreign countries like China will.
Now, the Trump administration’s tariff formula is saying prices for all imported products will go up 10.25%.
In reality, they may go up much more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j04IAbWCszg
“Evenezer Cortez Martinez wanted to pay respects to a beloved grandfather who died last fall.
He ended up deported, sent back to Mexico, a country the 39-year-old Kansas husband and father left at the age of 4.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kansas-city-area-man-deported-105513041.html
Ukraine’s biggest problem is a lack of manpower. Russia’s manpower advantage is growing. Russia doesn’t want a ceasefire, because Putin believes he has the advantage and can gain more by continuing the war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK1N1nTjbic
China tends to make cheaper things than lots of Americans can buy. Americans tend to make more expensive things. The average Chinese person has less disposable income than the average American, so it doesn’t make sense for them to buy more from the U.S. than the U.S. from China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBBDbz7mC8k
“When it comes to implementing those tariffs, Miran repeatedly stresses the need to move deliberately and in ways that “are minimally disruptive to markets and the economy.”
“There is a path by which the Trump Administration can reconfigure the global trading and financial systems to America’s benefit,” Miran wrote at the end of his essay, “but it is narrow, and will require careful planning, precise execution, and attention to steps to minimize adverse consequences.”
That’s, uh, not what’s happened this week.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/04/trumps-tariff-blueprint-called-for-careful-planning-and-precise-execution/
Trump Is Making Affordable Goods Expensive
https://reason.com/2025/04/04/trump-is-making-affordable-goods-expensive/
“The “reciprocal” tariffs that President Donald Trump announced this week are based on a flagrant fallacy: the idea that there is something inherently suspicious about trade deficits. Unlike many of the positions that Trump has adopted as a politician, this one seems heartfelt and long predates his presidential campaigns. His comments on the subject during the last four decades reflect an unshakable belief that international trade is “fair” only when the dollar value of imports from any given country happens to match the dollar value of U.S. exports to that country.
Trump’s long history of economic illiteracy suggests he is determined to pursue this trade war, which features import taxes that are much steeper and far broader than the ones he imposed during his first term, no matter how much pain it inflicts on American consumers and businesses.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/04/trumps-longtime-obsession-with-trade-deficits-suggests-his-tariffs-wont-end-soon/