I’m eagerly awaiting Donald Trump’s announcements of increased tariffs on Liberation Day, April 2. I used to think that Donald Trump was an ignoramus who didn’t understand the gains from trade. But now I realize that he understands it better than we economists. All we have are our models and our logical reasoning. Trump has experience as a trader in the real world who understands that in every trade, there is a winner and loser. He also understands that when domestic car companies charge low prices to Americans, that’s good, but when foreign car companies charge low prices, that’s bad. I really must read The Art of the Deal thoroughly so that I may understand the source of his wisdom.
I wasn’t wrong to criticize Kamala Harris for advocating price controls during the presidential campaign. But I’m wrong for having criticized Donald Trump for warning auto companies not to raise prices after his tariffs on cars increase demand and his tariffs on aluminum and steel reduce domestic supply. The difference is that Harris is a Democrat and Trump is a Republican and that makes all the difference.
I was wrong to conclude, back in 2021, that Joe Biden had dementia. I should have gone with the insights of Joe Scarborough on MSNBC, who thought that even in March 2024, Joe was “better than he’s ever been, intellectually, analytically.”
In recent days, I’ve told American and Canadian friends that the new Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, is someone who wants to regulate people’s lives because of climate change. But now, having read parts of his insightful book Value(s), I realize that, as a central banker, he has profound knowledge of climate change and much basis for his view that “the risks are existential.” Silly me for concluding, after reading Steven Koonin’s book Unsettled, that “[T]he good news is that the long-term economic effect of even substantial global warming will be small.”
