Pun Salad

I'd offer a slight correction: the first casualty of a trade war are investors that were foolish enough to assume a healthy future for the American ecomomy.

But surely America gained something from Trump's latest tariff stunt? Au contraire, mes amis. Or so says Eric Boehm: America gained nothing from Trump's latest tariff stunt.

A cheap, but accurate shot. At least Trump didn't go full Indiana Jones: "I don't know. I'm making this up as I go."

Also of note:

• The Federalist: increasingly worthless? I manage to avoid the Trump sycophants, who gleefully shake their pom-poms at whatever Trump said or did yesterday. Even if it contradicts or undoes what he did the day before yesterday.

  But sometimes I hit an article like this one from Beth Brelje: Look At Beef To Understand Why U.S. Trade Needs A Makeover. I like to look at beef, so…

  Things do not start well:

  he international trade landscape is quickly shifting as President Donald Trump makes one bold tariff move after another in his effort to forge more favorable trade agreements for the United States.

  We aren't looking at panic and chaos. It's "one bold tariff move after another".

  Look no further than the global beef trade to understand why Trump wants to steer U.S. trade in a new direction. The imbalance within this industry illustrates the broader trade issues that leave the U.S. at a disadvantage.

  Beth thinks "imbalance" is prima facie evidence that America is at a "disadvantage". Apparently ignoring arguments that trade deficits don't matter.

  But let's look at Beth's beef with the beef trade. She states (I assume accurately) that the US exported $10.45 billion worth of beef last year. This is out of a total $3191.6 billion export market. Which works out to be a little shy of 0.33%.

  Similarly, beef imports were $11.73 billion out of a total $4110 billion, a share of about 0.29%.

  We aren't talking about big deals in the grand scheme of things, in other words.

  But let's make a couple obvious points before we go on:

  1. American beef producers would like to sell more beef to people in other countries.
  2. And they would prefer that Americans would not buy so much imported beef. Ideally, none. Because that's competition.
  3. And they have a considerable amount of political clout.

  Back to Beth's article, which looks at beef trade with three countries: Australia, China, and Brazil. Concentrating on Australia:

  The U.S. has had a free trade agreement with Australia for 20 years. In that time, Australia has sold $28.7 billion of beef to U.S. consumers, but fresh U.S. beef has been banned for sale there.

  U.S. beef producers can only sell Australia cooked beef. Over 20 years, Australia has imported $31 million of precooked U.S. beef, creating a deficit. It could get bigger; Australia wants to expand sales in the U.S.

  Australian Wagyu beef now has an estimated 48 percent of the U.S. market, leaving a minority, 41 percent market share for U.S.-produced Wagyu beef.

  OK. For the record, the Australian Agriculture department denies that American beef is banned there. They (apparently) demand proof that it originates in the US, not Canada or Mexico.

  But the bottom-line reason that they don't buy American beef: it's really expensive compared to their local beef.

  Further fun fact. Austrailia's human population is slightly under 28 million. Its beef cattle population is estimated at … about the same. (If you add in dairy cattle, yes, the cattle outnumber the humans.

  (In comparison, US people number about 340 million, US cattle about 87 million.)

  And, finally: overall America had a $17.9 billion trade surplus in 2024 with Australia last year. But (see above), like trade deficits, trade surpluses don't matter either.

  There's no way to jiggle these numbers to come up with a proper "balance" of trade, in beef or anything else. Despite Beth's cherry-picked stats, there's nothing to see here.

• And so it is unsurprising that… as George Will says: This is 10-thumbed, fumbling, overconfident governmental progressivism. (gifted link)

  Trump might be the most progressive president since, early in the 20th century, progressivism defined itself with three core tenets:

  First, only an energetic executive can make modern government “wieldy” — Woodrow Wilson’s word. (“The president,” said Wilson, “is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can.”) Second, the separation of powers is a premodern mistake that permits Congress to meddle in government and allows the judiciary to inhibit the executive.

  Third, conservatives see modern society’s complexities as reasons to avoid attempting dramatic social engineering, lest unintended consequences overwhelm intended ones. Progressives think conservatives are worrywarts too timid about wielding government.

  GFW is blessed/cursed with a long memory, recalling previous presidential economy screwups. And this might dwarf them all.

• Or maybe just tired of tariffs. Robert F. Graboyes thinks we may be getting Tired of Winning, Apparently.

  Ancient societies believed solar eclipses caused plagues, deaths of kings, crop failures, etc. To stave off the anger of gods or God, they beat drums, flung arrows, slaughtered livestock, and sacrificed children. This madness subsided as science demonstrated that eclipses were predictable and benign.

  Antique societies similarly feared trade deficits. Their religion—“mercantilism”—taught that trade deficits impoverish a nation, benefit the wealthy, and result from other countries’ malice. Mercantilists viewed tariffs the way their ancestors viewed drums, arrows, cattle-slaughter, and child-sacrifice. Their beliefs were demolished by David Hume (1752), Adam Smith (1776), David Ricardo (1817), and centuries of theory and data. Unfortunately, economists haven’t been as successful as astronomers at dispelling superstition.

  I strive to respect viewpoints contrary to my own. I believe Biden’s stimulus spending was futile and destructive, that the Fed should focus on inflation and not real growth, and that socialism is ruinous. But intelligent people feel otherwise, and I respect that; theory and data are hazy, and different people have different priorities. Tariffs are different. No one who understands trade seriously believes tariffs spur economic growth. A talented economist can postulate theoretical conditions under which that might happen, just as a talented physicist can specify conditions under which spacecraft can travel faster than light. Nice intellectual exercises with limited practical value. Let’s examine the superstitions.

  The nine superstitions examined: Tariffs aren’t taxes; Tariffs are taxes on foreigners; Tariffs increase national prosperity; More foreign investment can spur lower trade deficits; Trade deficits indicate weakness; Lower overseas wages are unfair to American workers; Trade has destroyed American manufacturing; Trade deficits can’t go on forever; Bilateral deficits indicate weakness and perfidy. If you hold any of them, see if Robert can disabuse you.

  And he has more too, some of it quite funny. Check it out.

• I am a sucker for a Bastiat reference. And Jonah Goldberg provides: That Which Is Unseen. Looking at Frederic's broken window tale, click over if you're unfamiliar, but here's the important meta-lesson Jonah draws:

  Free market economics are not nearly so intuitive as people who grow up in free market cultures often think. Not all intuitions are innate, some are learned. Soldiers are trained to have different intuitions in the face of enemy fire than normal people have. Bear trainers learn to have different intuitions than the rest of us when confronting a grizzly. It is a pretty natural human intuition to steal if you think you can get away with it. But parents and society try to teach people not to give into it. I honestly would have thought that washing your hands after doing gross stuff was a natural human intuition given how instinctively it comes to me. But, apparently not.

  Read the whole thing, if you can.