QOTD: Bad Economics And Bad Politics

 

Another great read from Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman, writing in Substack on why Dems shouldn't give the Malignant Fascist any cover on tariffs:

"Donald Trump’s tariffs are bad economics. They’re also bad politics. I’m not an expert on issue polling, but public opposition to the Trump tariffs looks extraordinary. It’s especially amazing when you bear in mind that many Republicans would support him if he said that the sky was green and all this blue stuff was a deep state conspiracy. Associating yourself with those tariffs in any way is tying yourself to an anchor that has just been thrown overboard.

So Democrats need to stop giving Trump cover. They shouldn’t be saying, as Gretchen Whitmer unfortunately did, that they can understand Trump’s motivation. Similarly, Shawn Fain, president of the United Autoworkers, has done his members a disservice by endorsing Trump’s auto tariffs: Republicans don’t care about helping workers, so all he has done is throw away credibility.

For the reality is that Trump’s motivation for tariffs, as for everything else, seems to be a desire to punish. In this case he wants to punish other countries, which he insists have treated America unfairly. He’s wrong when it comes to our (former?) allies: Europe and Canada, for example, have done nothing wrong. And while we have real grievances against China, Trump’s tariffs are a very bad way to address those grievances, not least because he’s alienating everyone who should be on our side." (our emphasis)

Let's hope more Dems don't step on a rake in wrongly suggesting the Malignant Fascist is even partially right. As Krugman explains, industrial policies, not tariffs, are the way to spur industries in the U.S.