https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/06\/18\/trump-economist-stephen-miran-trade-war-00410450<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Foreign manufacturers will have to lower their prices to accommodate tariff rates, Miran believes. If they don\u2019t, then U.S. importers will turn to factories in other markets rather than absorbing the cost of tariffs themselves.
\n\u201cWe can move our demand across borders, but a factory can\u2019t get up and move across borders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
You might say, his theory is that the customer is always right.<\/p>\n
This line of thinking, a theme of his work since before he joined the administration, is an important way Miran\u2019s reasoning diverges from that of most of his fellow economists. Critics point to examples \u2014 such as Trump\u2019s tariffs on washing machines in his first term \u2014 where consumers seemed to be the ones who paid the price.<\/p>\n
The question of who will bear the cost burden of import taxes is an important puzzle piece for gaming out how much inflation will rise and how much growth will slow. It is a particularly critical dilemma for the Federal Reserve, which is trying to decide when to ease off the decelerating economy.”<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
“For this to work, foreign firms have to believe that, unless they capitulate, U.S. companies really will relocate their supply chains elsewhere, Miran told me. That\u2019s one of the many tricky parts for proponents of Trump\u2019s agenda \u2014 and Miran conceded as much.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is that for a lot of products, there\u2019s not a credible alternative for a supply chain available instantaneously, right?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The recalibration, in other words, will take some time.<\/p>\n
And that time could come at a price for the economy, as Trump\u2019s shifting tariffs and fluid negotiations leave businesses hesitant to take action. If firms knew where tariffs would land, they could make investment decisions \u2014 on where to build factories, on what size workforce they need, on whether they need to change their business model. In the meantime, many executives are frozen in place, a paralysis that itself could take a bite out of growth.<\/p>\n
Right now, manufacturers have been scaling back production as new orders dry up, and confidence in business conditions among CEOs collapsed during the second quarter at its fastest pace in roughly half a century.<\/p>\n
Miran was straightforward about acknowledging that policy uncertainty is a challenge, repeatedly suggesting that there could be volatility \u2014 in growth, in prices \u2014 ahead.”<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/06\/18\/trump-economist-stephen-miran-trade-war-00410450<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[221,217,165,272,355,290,314,208,141,226,227,170],"class_list":["post-18276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-donald-trump","tag-economics","tag-economy","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-policy","tag-imports","tag-international-relations","tag-tariffs","tag-taxes","tag-trade","tag-trade-war","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18277,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18276\/revisions\/18277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}