Leland Yeager on Trump and Trade

Cato adjunct scholarLeland B. Yeager had a long career at the University of Virginia Department of Economics in its golden age and later at Auburn University. He is the author of  Foreign Trade and U.S. Policy: The Case for Free International Trade (1976), International Monetary Relations: Theory, History and Policy (1976),  andFree Trade: America ’s Opportunity (1954). At 93 he is still as insightful and as blunt as ever, and he just published this critique of President Trump ’s understanding of trade policy at Liberty magazine under the title “Profound and Destructive. ” The whole thing is reprinted below.___________________President Trump ’s destructiveness requires few words here. Consider how world stock and currency markets have been shaken by the resignation on March 6 of Gary Cohn, regarded until then as Trump’s chief economic adviser. Although not a trained economist, Cohn apparently had some sound instincts derived from ye ars of financial experience. His departure apparently and ominously leaves more influence, or echo, to Peter Navarro — look him up with Google.This latest example of destructiveness follows the one touched off by Trump ’s March 2 tweet bewailing America’s loss of “many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with” and heralding trade wars as “good, and easy to win.”I ’ll spend more words on how profound Trump’s ignorance is. He considers a country’s excess of imports over exp...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs