Category: Commentary

In part I, I explained why I don’t feel the outrage so many others do. I made it clear that there are many things the Trump administration is doing that I disagree with either in intent or manner, but I don’t share the feeling that the end is near, as so many liberals, progressives, and the media preach. In part II, I covered what the big challenges are facing America today, and in part III, I suggested what those challenges require. It was a daunting list, yet I ended up sounding somewhat optimistic. In this conclusion, I’ll try to explain “why?”

The first cause for optimism is that it’s always better to correctly understand the world you’re in (and the problems thereof). That may seem obvious, but it bears repeating. Back during the Cold War, there were people who insisted the Soviet Union was just misunderstood, they weren’t as evil or ambitious as they seemed. Sometimes, these people were in power in various Western governments. It wasn’t a disaster, but it never went well. Anyway, people who think all will be well when we get to post-Trump are in for a rude awakening. They have missed the point.

That said, many people on both the right and the left are correctly describing how the world has changed. And that means they will be proposing solutions. Take for instance the economy. From the right, Oren Cass and the folks at American Compass have proposals to support families, unions, middle-class workers, and small businesses! On the left, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson have a fascinating analysis in their new book, Abundance, which highlights how government regulations strangle both productivity and progress. Our leaders should welcome such ideas. I would love to hear that President Trump has invited Klein and Thompson to lead a federal study on which federal regulations to amend/eliminate.

On international relations, foreign leaders are admitting they have neglected military spending for decades, and have to adjust. I had a fascinating exchange on social media with someone defending Belgium as a loyal American ally who simply chose to invest in a better life for its citizens. I asked why that same idea didn’t apply to Americans, and of course got no response. Germany recently signaled a major investment in its military; I’ll withhold judgment until I see the spending turn into real capabilities.The notion of a “global policeman” is an historical oddity, and we need to return to reality. Freedom isn’t free, for anybody.

On international trade, no one can argue Trump hasn’t upended the system. That part is done. It’s very unclear if his administration has the acumen to create a new one. I guarantee if they don’t, they won’t get a second chance in 2028. There will be economic dislocations along the way, whoever eventually develops the new trading system. But the jury is still out, as we don’t even have a full quarter of economic data under Trump’s second term yet. What we can’t do is continue along the path of free-trade-no-matter-what that we were on.

Technology remains an unknown. America has the technological genius to win the AI war, but do we have the political genius to enable, enforce, and exploit it? I don’t see that in either party right now. And the people developing the systems can’t do it alone; remember, FaceBook was going to be a global commons of love and happiness–how did that turn out?

Education reform is a mixed bag, in my opinion. Things like growth in home-schooling and charter schools are only good in that having options is always better; they are not sure things, by any stretch of the imagination. But I hear of school systems resuming testing and standards, banning cell phones, and re-creating challenging placement programs. We’ll need a return of non-college track options, too. At the same time, some schools remain tied to things like the 1619 Project and DEI initiatives, which are educational dead ends. At least the general direction in education is toward more competition, which will expose the fads and frauds.

Government spending is where the outlook is most grim. DOGE has been mainly a stunt, notwithstanding saving $100+ billion. Trimming the federal workforce helps, but the way it’s being done is neither healthy nor precise. Everybody continues to swear all entitlements are off the table, which makes reducing the deficit almost impossible. Meanwhile, the MAGA party swears by Republican tax cuts for all and the Democrats profess “wealth taxes” and “ending corporate welfare,” bogus phrases which have no meaning. The silver lining here is that the threatening storm clouds will not blow away, so we have to face up to cuts eventually. I’ll go so far as to say that the party/leader who commits to addressing the deficit/debt issue with real solutions will win the next Presidential election.

One other reason for optimism is how fast the Trump administration is working when it knows what it wants to do. Look at immigration, which I don’t consider one of the great remaining challenges. Trump was always clear about how he felt on immigration; no one can debate that. We were assured by immigration experts that nothing could be done to stop the masses of people heading up through Central America, and that no one could identify all the undocumented/illegal aliens already in the country, that removing them would destroy the home-building and agricultural sectors, and that most of the people here were vetted and therefore not a threat. We have since learned that none of those “truths” were correct.

Border crossings are down somewhere around ninety percent (the exact numbers are in dispute, not the size of the change). The pipeline of migrants in Central America has reversed and is heading back home. The federal government is (for the first time) using all data at its disposal (including tax data) to identify those illegally in the country. Imagine that. Trump’s audacious (or illegal, the Supreme Court has not ruled) deportations have sent a clear signal that illegal immigration is as dangerous once you reach the United States as it was getting there. And people are realizing that no one could vet these migrants, as their home countries either didn’t share data with the US, or didn’t care.

But like many of the bigger challenges, all of this is being done quickly but impermanently. A future progressive Presidency could undo much of it just as quickly. The administration will need to work with Congress in a bipartisan fashion to enact laws that bring stability to the results already achieved. We need better border security, streamlined immigration proceedings, a new merit-based immigration policy, solutions for “the Dreamers,” elimination of birthright citizenship, reform of temporary refugee rules, and leadership to change international asylum law. That’s quite a menu! I have serious doubts about Trump’s ability to do this, even in immigration, which should be his strong suit. And the same goes for all the challenges above.

When you look at my list of challenges, you can see progress or promise in nearly every item. So the challenges are daunting, but I remain optimistic. One final note, about that Trump guy. I have friends who live-and-die on a steady diet of Trump outrage, and it only outrages them more when anyone else doesn’t join them. I don’t, because he’s just not that important. He is at best a transitional figure, and he seems to instinctively understand some of the issues, even if his solutions are often not well-conceived. If you focus on Trump, you have my sympathy. There are thousands of influencers, media types, and “friends” feeding the obsession. He doesn’t merit all the attention, and you’re missing out on profound things happening in the larger world. One day we will be beyond Trump, that much is certain. In the meantime, we all have choices to make: identify problems and solutions, or resist Trump. I choose the former. If you choose the latter, we’ll meet up again in the post-Trump world.

This is the third post in a four-part series. This post covers what the possibilities are following that (perhaps) creative destruction.

What will the changed world look like, if we peer intently at it without filtering it through a Trumpian or Resistance lens? Like this:

Geopolitics and the Military. In case you missed it, Uncle Sam walked off the beat as the world’s policeman. It didn’t happen under Trump. We got tired of the beat way back under “W,” then started taking mental health days-off under Obama. It continued under Trump’s first term and Biden’s senescence. During that period, our absence became noticeable, then obvious. Red-lines crossed, invasions met with outrage or “sanctions,” diplomatic insults ignored or endured. None of the Presidents I mentioned are to blame specifically; they each correctly intuited the American people’s view that enough was enough.

Now we are one tough opponent away from having a military humiliation. That won’t mean the end of anything, let alone the good ole US of A. But it’s a bad situation. In the past, we were able to recover quickly (see Pearl Harbor, Kasserine Pass, Pusan perimeter, the battle of Long Island, Bull Run I & II, and so on), but that is not always an option. It takes economic production and national will, two other things in short supply. Our leaders need to be clear-headed about who we are committed to defending, and why. We are not facing a global peer competitor bent on world domination (like the Nazis or the Soviet Union were). China wants to coerce the world toward its preferences, much like the US did (cooperatively) after World War II. The end result would be bad, and it is something we should oppose. But every nation is going to have to pull its own weight. And the US needs to radically restructure its armed forces quickly and efficiently, since we can’t simply throw money we don’t have at the challenge.

Economics & Trade. Economists used to talk about the “rational consumer” making informed choices as the key to understanding the markets and trade. Such economic theorists never stood outside a Best Buy in the wee hours of Black Friday. Economics may be the dismal science, but it is hardly the rational one. Economics is a subset of national security, as we recently relearned. If a country can’t make the things it needs, it may be denied those things when it most urgently needs them (medicines, computer chips, minerals). The US must recover this notion not in order to become autarchic (meeting all our needs alone), but to avoid being at the mercy of competitors, whether friends or enemies.

This will involve upending the free trade system we built. As a person who benefited greatly from the free movement of goods, services, and people, I lament its passing. As a clear-eyed observer of what’s happening, I admit it has to go. That means more border restrictions, tariffs, quotas, and restrictions. It doesn’t mean a senseless rush to impose all such things against all countries at once. Nixon may have pulled off the madmen theory of international politics with respect to bombing North Vietnam, but that doesn’t make it a viable strategy in general.

Things will cost more. Some things will be unavailable. There will be disruptions. There were under the old free-trade system, too. The fallacy of just-in-time delivery was that not everything can be planned for, let alone adjusted to. Some manufacturing will return to America; we’ll never have as many manufacturing jobs as we once did, because we are producing more things with fewer people nowadays. But there will be more opportunities for decent middle-class jobs.

Education. The American educational system has lost its way. Our brightest students do fine, and we heap resources on those who need more/different/extra help. But the vast majority of students in the middle are terribly short-changed. We spend more than most nations (per student) and get worse results. Schools have increasingly added staff for counselling and managing rather than teachers for teaching.

True story: back when the founders were “bringing forth a new nation,” there were very few public schools. The rich hired tutors, and church schools provided the primary source of education. Our early leaders knew that a Republic needs an educated polity, so they developed the notion of free public education. A (very) secondary benefit was shaping the culture of the next generation. Today we seem to have gotten things reversed. Schools spend too much time pushing cultural agendas, and not enough time ensuring basic literacy and numeracy. You don’t need to engage in a culture war while you’re learning to read-n-write (take note, Montgomery County, Maryland). You don’t learn how to deal with a different person by being told how to think about one, you learn by having a friend in your class who is different.

We could all do with a significant clarification of roles with regard to how we educate our youth. The primary role belongs to parents and teachers in local schools. School boards exist to provide the partnership necessary to enforce those roles, not to tell parents to “mind their own business” or tell teachers how to teach. School boards absolutely do decide what to teach; that is their main purpose. They do this by representing the values and desires of the people in the community. It’s not censorship, it’s local control. And it’s okay if things are different in different places. City and State governments provide funding to address imbalances, and establish requirements for accreditation/graduation. The federal government can also provide funding, and should set national educational standards for achievement. Not use that money as a means to micro-manage it.

Taxes, Spending, Regulations. This is where most of us will feel the pain. We’ve been overspending for so long, so much has to be cut, it will affect everyone. There is no single magic solution, a la “tax the rich” or a wealth tax or ending corporate welfare that will bring the federal fiscal books back near balance. They don’t have to balance exactly, they just can’t be out for whack like they have been for forty-six of the past fifty years! Yes, we should raise taxes on the rich, but we’ll need some benefit cuts, too. More programs need to be means-tested.

Take social security for example. There are many terrible memes about it, like the Ronald Reagan quote that Social Security does not add to the deficit. It was true back in 1981, it’s absolutely false today. Or the meme decrying that social security should not be called an “entitlement” because ‘I earned it.’

It’s called an entitlement because that’s a federal legal term meaning the government “has to” pay it. Still want to change the word? And unless you die early, you’ll get more from social security than you paid in (even accounting for your employers contribution AND interest). See what the problem is? If most everybody gets more than they pay in, the only way the system can work is if the population of young workers (who have not yet retired) is always growing larger than the wave of retirees they are supporting. Guess what? It isn’t anymore, and since the number of twenty-somethings in 2045 is already set, it won’t ever be so again soon.

The good news is there are many small fixes which can make the system sound once more. There’s a website you can visit (here), where you can try your hand at fixing the problem, and it doesn’t require throwing granny off the cliff. But as long as we treat all entitlement reform as untouchable, we’ll continue to hurtle toward a very real, very sizable cut within a decade or two.

As to other spending and employee reductions, here’s a simple point DOGE made which has been lost in the partisan battle. DOGE is characterizing everything as fraud/waste/abuse, and the Resistance is highlighting how each cut will hurt. Did the US Agency for International Development (USAID) really spend US $32,000 on an LBGTQ+ comic book in Peru? No, the Resistance tells us, it was the State Department (not USAID), and it was a gay character, not LBGTQ+ (Snopes says so!). But stop and consider this: in a country seriously over-spending (as measured by our deficit), the system approved funding for such things. The system (people and process, both) thought it was no big deal. Maybe because it was small, but this happens all over the government. Maybe they thought it was important, even critically so. But when you claim we don’t need to radically restructure both the people and the process the government uses to spend money, you have to defend these outcomes. Good luck!

Technology. We are on the brink of an important technological advance. Artificial Intelligence (AI) may prove as revolutionary as the printing press, or merely as important as the personal computer. But it will effect major changes in society, and we don’t know how. We just finished with a small experiment on our own children (smart phones + social media) that has not turned out well in my opinion. We currently let the Communist Party of China have direct access to the ids an egos of our children and young adults (via TikTok), in a way we never would have let the Nazis or the Soviets. The Chinese do not let their own children and young adults access the same info they peddle to ours. And now we are in a technological competition with them for AI supremacy. Did it matter who won the race for the atom bomb? Absolutely for the Nazis, not as much for the Soviets. But do we want to find out what it’s like to come in second? And are we ready in any event?

This may all seem to be bleak and overwhelming. That said, I wouldn’t trade the position of the United States for that of any competitor. Of all the nations/groups involved in this developing new world order, we have the biggest advantages, not least in that we have people on both the left and the right that realize the changes we are experiencing. Denying them, or attributing them to the passing fancies of Donald Trump, are fatal errors. And no, I’m not saying President Trump has the answers. I’m sure someone out there is readying another comment about Trump’s inadequacy or insanity, missing the global forest of challenges for the Trumpian trees.

The Trump administration may have stumbled onto some of the correct policies. They still have to implement them in ways which work. And these policies will require both legislative enactment and sustained commitments well beyond the Trump years. I’ll wrap up my thoughts on that in the final post.

This is the second post in a four-part series. I’ve been thinking about all the dislocation the Trump administration has wrought, what it means, and what will follow it. Today’s installment is about that dislocation.

Sometimes the world seems to change on a dime. You can look at an event, almost always after the fact, and say, “yup, that’s where everything changed.” Take the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. New technologies were already revolutionizing travel and the spread of information. Global trade was booming. The shifting alliance system of Europe, developed after the shock of Napoleon’s reign in the early nineteenth century, had generally kept the peace in Europe and even among the many world-wide colonies for a century. That assassination triggered World War I, destroyed several empires, began the deconstruction of colonialism, undid international trade, and set the table for a far more destructive and disruptive sequel, World War II.

It didn’t happen all at once. There was a month of build-up after the assassination, and of course several years of war and decades of tumult, but it all tied directly back to the gunshot at the carriage in Sarajevo.

Many might suspect the terrorist attack on 9/11 was another such event. It’s too early to tell, but did the world change that day, or in the twenty-some years since? The US got involved in foreign wars: some justified, some not. People all over the world had to adjust to tightened security at airports. Islam received greater attention concerning its relationship with modernity. Oh, it was traumatic, especially to those who suffered a loss or were in the targeted cities. But the world remained remarkably similar. And it was that world which is now fundamentally changing.

Other times the entire world changes fundamentally but slowly. China retreated inward and disappeared from the world over a few centuries at the end of the first millennium. The United Kingdom took forty years or so to understand, address, and finally solve “the German Question.” Which only opened the door to “the Soviet Problem” the US had to understand, address, and finally solve after forty-five years. We appear to be in one of the those cycles of history, where things are changing fundamentally, but slowly.

The changes in the international situation can be neatly summed up: we have returned to a multi-polar world. For a period between 1989 (the collapse of the Soviet Union) and perhaps 2008 (the Great Recession), the US was the sole remaining superpower. It could throw its unchallenged weight around financially, militarily, morally and politically. However, throughout that period, China and the European Union (EU) were growing more economically resilient and resistant to US leadership. For the EU, it was arguing at the margins of the international free-trade order which had benefited both the EU and the US. For China, it was using that order to undermine the US and the order itself. Western leaders believed if they invited China to play by the rules, the benefits of global free trade would liberalize the Communist regime. The Chinese believed they could rig the game, make the West dependent on them, and emerge as a global power. Guess who was right?

Meanwhile, the US military edge dulled and atrophied. Our military remains dominant, but too small and perhaps too centered on legacy capabilities for modern warfare. It is a potent force, but brittle, and not resourced for longer engagements, which is a disastrous weakness when confronting powers that are. I’ll spare you the details on military capabilities, but if you even look at modern combat in Ukraine, you see radically different capabilities. Our military can master these new requirements, but will they be prepared?

Not to mention the erosion of American will. America’s willpower was always the secret weapon of American success. We may not win at first, but we persevere and win in the end, whether its battle, business, or sports. We won early in Afghanistan, but couldn’t stay the course long enough to accomplish our enlarged goals of creating a liberal democracy in the Hindu Kush. Mind you, that was a terrible case of mission creep, but it’s not like we didn’t know how (see Germany, Korea, Japan, etc) or have the resources. And it’s not that the cost in lives was too high: in the years before President Trump negotiated our withdrawal, and President Biden comically and criminally executed it, we lost more soldiers in training accidents annually than in Afghanistan! It took almost fifty years for South Korea to become a developed democracy. We simply lost the ability to persevere.

On the home front, the economic deals we made furthering free trade undermined the American dream for millions of the factory-working middle class. Our political parties took turns reducing taxes and increasing benefits, leading to sky-rocketing deficits and national debt. Any attempt to rein in spending met with dire predictions of poverty for the most vulnerable, or economic ruin for the most productive. Social Security is now drawing down its reserves (the ill-fated “lock box”), meaning we’re paying today dollars to redeem those bonds, and interest on the national debt will soon be the biggest single line item in the federal budget.

The administrative state has gone completely out of control. In the early 1990s, the code of federal regulations contained around 60,000 pages. Today it’s close to 200,000. Even small changes in federal policies or practices run into mind-numbing requirements, such that an administration can easily add to them, but it is almost powerless to remove them. Even Progressives have come to realize that America is drowning in a mass of procedural red tape that prohibits or delays everything from tiny houses to bridges to business start-ups. And we did this entirely to ourselves.

Speaking of self-sabotage, is there anybody who still doesn’t realize our educational system is expensive, inefficient, and produces poor results? While this was largely an academic (sorry for the pun) argument in the past, the pandemic laid it bare: Unions arguing for no school, school systems wasting billions while not recovering lost learning, absenteeism at record rates. Not to mention universities producing “graduates” who can’t write a single coherent page.

At the same time, technology is racing along, changing at a fairly rapid pace. Artificial Intelligence may change everything . . . or it may not. But it will change many things, and only those countries, businesses, and people who are prepared will prosper (thus has it always been). Does the United States I have described sound like a country that is prepared to exploit the change?

Fixing any one of these (trade, military force, federal spending, education, or new technology) would be a herculean undertaking. All at once? Improbable, but that is where we are. What it calls for is drastic, fundamental change in our approach to the challenges. Practically starting over. Look at global trade, for example. Who wants to overturn the system? Nobody. It’s been good for the EU, China, developing nations, the Davos crowd, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), even for some in the United States. But it’s not working the way we want, which means we either have to live with it, or force it to change. That is not done lightly or easily, as Trump’s tariff wars demonstrate.

There’s the one name I haven’t mentioned previously: Trump. Fans and ‘phobes both focus on him (he loves it, by the way), but he’s a symptom of the change, not its cause, and probably not its solution. One thing Mr. Trump has always been very good at is identifying problems, and he called out many of these before he ran for office the first time. I often see social media posts lamenting, “how could the working class fall for this rich phony?” I usually respond the same way: because he was the only one correctly identifying the problems the working class was experiencing. Will he fix them? I have my doubts, but the voters who support him know there is a better chance at fixing the problems when you know what they are, then if you don’t have a clue. Which was the case of the alternatives.

The case for fundamental change is pretty clear. The alternative is to avoid the pain and continue down the path to national insolvency and international irrelevance. But there are few easy fixes, and even when there are some, a few sacred oxen–conservative and progressive– will need to be gored. I am not saying the dislocation the Trump administration is causing is necessarily the right way; rather, you shouldn’t object to it simply because it is dislocation (or because it is Trump’s). We are all going to have to get used to some discomfort (ideological or economic) on the way to recovery.

Part III will talk about that path forward.

A very good friend of many years posed a series of questions to me recently. He applauded my in-depth research and dispassionate consideration of issues, but then pointedly asked why I take the media to task for its bias and exaggeration but why I didn’t subject the Trump agenda to the same level of scrutiny? Why didn’t I see the same “threats to democracy” so many others do? How could I be so complacent with everything that’s going on? These were thoughtful (if somewhat slanted) observations that deserve a response. Here it is.

First, I would answer by asking, “what is the source of your outrage?” If you’re outraged because you disagree with Trump’s policies, you made a category error. Policies need to be argued, neither hated nor cheered. If you’re outraged by Trump’s vulgarity, coarseness, and willingness to shred the restraints of good manners (personally and politically), I totally understand. But is Trump unique in this regard? Only for those who haven’t studied history, as I have detailed with Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, just to cite recent leaders. What is different about Trump is he embodies the whole package, and more importantly, he revels in it, seeking your agreement that he is indeed unique and unprecedented. Your outrage is exactly what he seeks, and you willingly work with him on it. You have to own that, as he is clear about it himself (Musk, too, as it is for all people who enjoy “trolling”)! But what if your outrage stems from the clear and present danger Trump poses to the American experiment? That would seem a self-evident justification for outrage. But whence does that assessment come?

Setting aside my well-worn point that what we have in America is a republic, not a democracy (it’s not germane to this argument, generally, but I’ll never miss a chance to re-state it), this assessment comes from various political leaders, press types, and expert influencers. They work in a mutually reinforcing cycle: Trump acts, political opponents observe that what he has done is “unprecedented” or “illegal” or “unconstitutional.” Media types flog this language in headlines. They then engage experts who comment on how Trump’s actions are not only all those things, they are also a “threat to democracy.” Rinse & repeat.

This cycle assured us Trump’s “Muslim ban” was unconstitutional. That Trump’s lawyers’ argument for Presidential immunity was “without precedent” and “staggering.” That deportations to El Salvador are beyond the pale. That withholding federal funds from universities or not spending amounts appropriated by Congress are systemic challenges. And on and on. What these cases have in common is hyperbole. Some were accepted by the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS); one may not like that, and one certainly does not have to agree with them. But one cannot simply continue to claim unconstitutionality in the face of a recent SCOTUS decision. Others are still up for debate, so what the talking heads should be saying is, “in my opinion” or “if I were in SCOTUS,” not just “it is unconstitutional.” The difference is important, because millions of Americans don’t understand that claims by such politicians, media, and expert influencers are not final. They are debatable opinions. And no, they are not the ones who ultimately make the decision, which is important.

What about those clear, unarguable cases? Like the deportations? Like the visa violations? As I demonstrated in earlier posts, when you ignore the national media and dig into the facts of the stories, they become far less clear, far more ambiguous. Tariffs are another great example. We’re clearly experiencing a major international economic dislocation sparked by the Trump administration’s tariff policies. Foreign governments are up in arms, because they liked the trading system the US developed, and now it is changing. Markets love stability, and the system is changing, so they are punishing everyone until some stability is achieved. When will a new equilibrium be established? No one knows, and neither does anyone know whether it will be more or less favorable to the United States. If you are a member of the MAGA faithful, you take Trump’s word that it will be great; if you are part of the resistance, you pronounce TEOTWAKI*. I prefer to watch and see what happens. I’ll hedge my bets, stay flexible, and adjust. I do know one thing for sure: the United States could not continue on the trade path it was on.

“Is there anything you’re willing to criticize about the administration and its policies?” I can hear my progressive friends cry. Let me count the ways:

• Needless demeaning of opponents, real or imagined (Canada, anyone?)
• Refusal to do the hard math regarding federal revenue and spending (National debt)
• Inability to admit a mistake under any circumstances
• Insistence on the brilliance and correctness of whatever the President says and does, even when he directly contradicts what he said or did yesterday (or five minutes ago!)
• Characterizing all opposition as traitorous or anti- American
• Describing any spending with which one doesn’t agree as “fraud, waste, and abuse.”
• Messaging profound economic changes in policies that inflame (rather than temper) market uncertainty.
• Unnecessarily cruel and demeaning trolling on social media (the crying immigrant case)

And that list is just off the top of my head. And does anybody doubt the media is over-producing critique of the administration? I consume more national media than almost anybody I know, and it is non-stop critique, not to mention social media. I prefer to consider and comment, and argue if necessary. I don’t see any value in the types of “shares” I see filled with vulgarity, photoshop, and obvious lies. Many social media “friends” do, sadly. They share such things, oddly unaware they are contributing to the overall decline in the social construct. Tell me what you think, and more importantly, why!

I could make similar lists of objectionable policies for the Biden administration, the Obama administration, the “W.” Bush administration, and the Clinton administration, just to name a few. Partisans on both sides impute a golden age to whatever recent President represented their “side” and “hell” to that of their opponents. Neither is true. The United States is in a mess, not because of Trump, but because of a series of policy decisions by all those leaders, including Donald J. Trump. Getting out of the mess won’t be easy, and won’t be painless . . . for all of us. But we have a choice: deny there is a problem and continue down the path to certain failure, or take the medicine and attempt to correct it. Note there is nothing certain in Trump’s (or anyone else’s) prescriptions for what ails us: they may be wrong, or they may not work. But I guarantee you denying the problems won’t either.

Coming next, Part II: The Role of Disruption

*The End of the World as we know it

Nothing better encapsulates today’s toxic mix of bad policy, worse media narratives, and extreme paranoia than the stories of The Maryland Man. You might be thinking, “Pat, the weird stories are always about a ‘Florida Man,'” and you would be right. But you know exactly who I am talking about.

One narrative goes like this: an innocent Maryland man, husband to an American wife and father to an American child, in the country legally for ten years, was arrested in a sweep by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was spirited off the streets while on his way to work, never to see his wife and children again. He disappeared into the deportation machine, until his wife identified him by tattoos as one of the “terrorist gang members” deported to El Salvador (mistakenly) and locked up in their maximum security prison. It is an offense to justice, due process, and humanity, all in one.

The other narrative says the man was a convicted member of MS-13, had come to the country illegally under false pretenses, was arrested at a gang meeting, had MS-13 membership tattoos, and now is out of the country where he no longer poses any threat to Americans.

Need I remind you that the term “narrative” could be simply defined as a story you want to believe. In this case, both narratives have some facts and many fallacies. Neither is true in any real sense of that word. “Let’s go to the videotape” as Warner Wolfe used to say.

The Maryland Man’s name is Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia (hereafter “Garcia”). He came to the United States at age sixteen in 2011 from El Salvador, crossing the border illegally (a fact not in dispute). He lived here for eight years before being detained in a police raid of suspected MS-13 gang members in 2019. The raid was predicated on a confidential source who correctly identified several MS-13 members, and indicated Garcia, too, was a member, although he was not the target of the raid. The police handed Garcia over to ICE. At his immigration hearing, he requested to be released on bail. The immigration judge found “the fact that a ‘past, proven, and reliable source of information’ verified (Garcia’s) gang membership, rank, and gang name is sufficient to support (Garcia’s) gang membership” and denied his release as a threat to the community.

Contra Vice President Vance’s assertion Garcia was “convicted,” this was an immigration court and hence a civil finding, not a conviction. Contra all those who minimize this finding, such a finding was all that was determined in President Trump’s sexual assault case. You can’t have it both ways. Back to the Maryland Man.

Garcia appealed the judge’s finding and it was affirmed by an appeals court who also noted Garcia was a flight risk due to his failure to show up for several traffic violations. Next Garcia filed a request for asylum, claiming his life was threatened by the Barrio 18 gang in El Salvador due to his family’s pupusa* business. His asylum filing was rejected because it was outside the statute of limitations, but the immigration judge did find Garcia had a legitimate fear if he was returned to El Salvador. Thus the judge granted him a “withholding of removal” to El Salvador. He could not be sent to that country, but he was ineligible for asylum and could be deported anywhere else.

He wasn’t picked up in an immigration raid, even back in 2019; it was a criminal (i.e., police) raid of MS-13 gang members. Although he was never convicted, both an immigration judge and an appeals court found he likely was a gang member. He was allowed to stay freely in the country (even after his asylum request was denied) by a lax Biden administration policy. He did not have a “legally-protected status” as some media sources claimed. His only legal protection was against being deported to El Salvador. This was the “administrative error” the Trump administration admitted to in court: not in deporting him, which was their right, but in deporting him to the one country to which he wasn’t allowed to be deported.

Was he assessed to be an MS-13 gang member because of his tattoos or clothing (he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat when apprehended). According to the judge who made the finding, no. That judge put no stock in the clothing or tattoos, but instead weighed the confidential source’s credibility and the fact Garcia was arrested in the company of three convicted MS-13 gang leaders. Does that mean he was a gang member? Not necessarily. Maybe he was and quit when he got to the States. Maybe he never was, and it was all one hell of a coincidence. Maybe he was a gang-banger, and just very good at not getting caught. Even the judge noted only having three minor traffic convictions in almost ten years would be unusual for a gang member.

What can we say definitively? He was not in the Unites States legally in any way shape or form. Garcia received all the due process which was his right: an immigration hearing, an appeal, and an asylum hearing. He never received any right or privilege to stay in the country, only one which prohibited his deportation to El Salvador. He never should have been on that plane to San Salvador, but he could have been dropped off in Mexico on any day of the week. Nothing in his record was unknown to his family; there were no surprises here, except for the fact that the Biden administration failed to detain him after two judges found he was a potential threat to the community. But that’s how they treated the law at the time. No one but Garcia, MS-13, or the Lord knows whether he was a gang member. One interesting point is that if he was an MS-13 member, it would explain his well-founded fear of the Barrio 18 gang, as they were mortal enemies.

This was not a sweeping miscarriage of justice, nor Gestapo tactics. It was blatantly incompetent. It is also sad that his wife and child are missing him, but that is the inevitable consequence of a series of horrible policy decisions by two (not one) administrations. I don’t know if Mr. Garcia is or was a gang member . . . and neither do you. What I do know is the narratives both sides are telling you are pupusas stuffed with something nasty.

*Salvadoran stuffed tortillas, according to the court record.

Post Script: Since I completed this, an appeals court judge said the deportation was “wholly lawless” and questioned the immigration court judge’s ruling that the ICE confidential source was credible. This is highly unusual, as appellate judges normally only review procedures and do not dispute the facts as established by the trial court (civil or criminal). The appellate judge did not explain why she disagreed with the immigration judge’s assessment of the source, calling the government’s claim “just chatter,” and she ordered the federal government to immediately comply by returning Garcia to the United States.

The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which held (5-4) that the district court where the initial ruling was made was not the correct venue and therefore the various orders and injunctions were null and void. The court did not rule on whether the Trump administration’s claims under the Alien Act of 1789 were valid. Stay tuned!

Back in 1976, we had a nationwide 55 mile per hour (mph) speed limit on the interstate system. It was done as a safety feature, and to save gas. It was hated by red-blooded, car-lovin’ Americans, who routinely flouted the law. But it was the law. In September of that year, Lieutenant Chuck Neary of the Indiana State Police coordinated with other local law enforcement departments to do something about that, in an effort that later went nationwide as Operation CARE (Cooperative Awareness and Reduction Efforts).

With little warning, “bears” (as the CB radio fans called the police) were all over the major interstate highways, from dawn-to-dusk. They drove three abreast at times, all at 55 mph. Or they drove two abreast, leaving the passing lane empty for anyone foolish enough to pass. Many did, and were dutifully pulled over by the many other police cars stationed along the highway. They had helicopters, radar traps, even a small airplane. They went at it all day, and made many arrests.

CB radio was a big deal back then, and the CB airwaves were laced with incredulity and profanity (and that was just my brother and me). It was a news headline, repeated other times, and even duplicated by other police forces. At the time, truckers attributed it to harassment, or called it a publicity stunt. Others suggested it was a cash grab by the State of Indiana. As a red-blooded, sixteen year-old owner of a baby blue Gran Torino, I saw it as denial of my constitutional right to drive how I wanted, when I wanted. I told my dad, Lt. Neary, as much; he just chuckled.

Years later, as he was reminiscing about his career, I asked what he intended with that operation. He told me flatly that speed kills, and differences in speed between drivers account for most accidents. People had become blasé about speeding since they got away with it so often, and this effort forced them to all drive the (same) legal limit, or face the consequences. Accidents went down that day, but they stayed down for a period thereafter. Sure, it took longer to get anywhere on those days, but the pain was necessary to get back to obeying the law.

You no doubt have seen several horror stories about visa holders being detained, or very nice undocumented migrant families being suddenly deported. These are sad stories. The stories exist because for a very long time, no one has enforced the law. That means there will be many sad stories, but they all have one thing in common: someone broke the law.

There’s the Canadian woman who got her professional visa denied at the border in Washington, then decided to try flying to Tijuana and crossing there. These things are all computerized; when the border agent pulls up your file and it says “denied entry” on another crossing , then you appear again trying to enter, what does that sound like to you? Even a friend of hers who advises Canadians about American visa processes told her it was a bad idea!

How about the German tattoo artist who tried to enter at San Ysidro (California) with her tattooing equipment? She had a tourist visa, which means she may not work in the United States. Who brings their work gear with them on a tourist junket? Somebody planning to violate the terms of their tourist visa, that’s who. She maintains she just wanted to tattoo a friend (for free), but even assuming that’s true, it’s the responsibility of the person entering a country to know and abide by that country’s visa limitations. And not do anything suspicious, because a visa is a privilege granted, not a right.

And the other German man with a green card who got taken into custody, and “violently interrogated” without anyone ever touching him? Seems Customs and Border Protection learned he had outstanding drug-related charges against him.

The French Scientist turned away from a conference in Houston allegedly because he had “anti-Trump text messages” on his phone? He also had a confidential document from the Los Alamos National Laboratory hidden on his phone, after having signed a non-disclosure agreement with them. While several French authorities have continued to cite the texts, no one has yet denied the document or the agreement violation. Hmmmmmm. But I’m sure it was just the texts!

For example, if you’re a Lebanese nephrologist invited to work (with a visa) at Brown University as a professor and doctor, it may be best not to attend the funeral for a Hezbollah leader before arriving to the States. Pictures of her visit were found in the deleted files of her cell phone by ICE officials (who have the authority to search such devices for anyone entering the country). She admitted she deleted them to avoid looking like someone who supported Hezbollah, but also that she found the Hezbollah terrorist leader Nasrallah to be “a highly regarded religious leader.”

How about the young British girl who wanted to backpack the Pacific Northwest into Canada. She signed up with a travel agency that linked her with people who would share their accommodations in exchange for helping out with chores (watching the kids, watering the plants, doing yard work). When she tried to enter Canada (yes, my Canadian friends, read that part again!), their immigration officials told her she couldn’t do such an exchange as it violated the terms of her Canadian visa. When she turned around, she had to explain to US officials what had happened. Then they, too, determined she had violated her American visa and detained her.

Many Mexicans would dearly love to visit the United States, not to migrate there, but to go to Las Vegas, or Disney World, or New York City. It costs between $200 and 2000 USD to apply (non-refundable). And the key to getting the visa: proving beyond a reasonable doubt that you will return to Mexico at the end of the visa period. I knew a local American couple helping a Mexican high school student who had been tentatively accepted to several US universities, and wanted to get a tourist visa to visit them first. They were denied, because they explained the student was thinking of attending US universities (which was true). But that indicated the student thinks they can stay in the United States, which is a disqualifier.

Why is the United States being so sticky about visas? Guess what the number one source of illegal immigration into the United States is! It’s not those poor, huddled masses sneaking through the border fences. It’s people getting legitimate US visas and then just deciding to stay afterward. See, the US didn’t even have a system for checking up on such people for a long time, so the visa holders, like the speeders, just decided it was fine to do so.

And a similar logic applies to other immigrant groups. US law permits the President to allow people from countries suffering environmental disasters (think earthquakes, tsunamis, etc) to temporarily resettle some refugees in the US. What’s odd is, no one who does so ever leaves. Some get paroled into the country by the Executive Branch, others just decide to stay. Undocumented migrants who sneak across the border do the same thing. They often apply for asylum, go through an extensive juridical process, get denied (about 90% get denied), then fail to show up for their deportation hearing.

The peculiar logic of having laws which no one follows goes from ridiculous to sublime after a while. States began producing special government-issue identification for people who should not legally be here, because not having a government ID made life difficult. Cities consider allowing such people to vote. I’ve already mentioned before that the combination of birthright citizenship and lax immigration enforcement creates families of undocumented/illegal aliens with US-citizen children, complicating how to deport one without the other.

Some will point out that the visa instances I cite involve people who claim to have been mistreated (poor food, locked in cold cells, unable to contact anybody, etc) while in detention. I don’t doubt that at all. I’ve toured the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa crossing cites, two of the busiest in the world. They have rudimentary cells, and aren’t designed for long-term detention. ICE has other sites which function as real prisons, because that’s what they are: prisons. Entering any country illegally is a crime. Yes, it’s a civil violation, not necessarily a criminal one (it could be), but I suggest next time you’re before a judge, you question receiving punishment because “breaking a civil law is not a criminal act.” Let me know how that turns out, will ya?

Think this is a US/Trump problem? It is true this administration has decided to be stricter than any other. But if I overstay my ninety-day tourist visa to the European Union, then the next time I return they will slap me in their holding cell, put me on the next flight back (at my expense). And I won’t be staying at a White Lotus resort.

Germany and the UK just provided notices to their citizens. Outrage media (in the first case, Newsweek, which is nothing but an online hype-outfit) called it a travel warning. In the text of the announcement, the German government covered the fact it was NOT a warning, that the US was using the same procedure that Germany uses, and that in is incumbent upon the traveler not to do or say anything that would constitute a reason for denial-of-entry. Thus is it everywhere people want to go. The UK issued an advice, which simply updated their existing advice by adding this phrase: “You should comply with all entry, visa and other conditions of entry. The authorities in the US set and enforce entry rules strictly. You may be liable to arrest or detention if you break the rules.” The Hill called this a “travel warning.” Some warning.

What about the California couple who were deported from Orange County to Colombia after living here for thirty-five years? They were stalwart members of the community, good people. They have grown (American-born) daughters and even a grandchild. Stop for a moment, and ask yourself this: in which country, on what planet, is it ok to flout the law for thirty-five years? Even ICE had taken to letting the couple make annual appointments to report they were still here! But before we leave their case, it also represents one more house that was not available for California’s American-record homeless crisis. For thirty-five years.

Would I like to see a little more nuance in visa and deportation enforcement? Yes, yes, I would. But what I see now is people claiming every enforcement is illegal, immortal, or stupid. All the cases I cited above begin with legacy/social media stories that either ignore or avoid pertinent facts in order to outrage people only waiting to be outraged. When you ignore a law long enough, people will expect you to ignore it forever. When that becomes untenable, there will be real pain.

Post Script: Some may wonder why I didn’t address the issue of the Palestinian green card holder being detained, or the transfer of “Tren de Aragua terrorists” to El Salvador. Both cases involve obscure interpretations of law, which will undoubtedly end up at the Supreme Court. And we have few facts, but many claims. In the first case, did you know the free-speech rights of green card holders may be different than citizens? I didn’t. It’s a case of unsettled law. Likewise, the second case will revolve around whether the President can declare an emergency under the Alien Tort Statute (1789). Once that’s settled, the rest follows (even due process, supposedly). And since the government is releasing little data, all we have are claims by the defendants they were “attacked for free speech” or “tattoos.” None of which is determinative for the cases. So we’ll have to wait to make an intelligent comment.

I referred to the Separation of Powers in the US Constitution the other day in a post, making the point it is a plural phrase: it is not a single, shared power, but different and competing powers. We all know this from high school civics (back when that was taught) or SchoolHouse Rock (when TV ruled).

Many talking heads are invoking arguments about the separation of powers, making it sound like there are clear divisions. There are in a general sense. But they are very fuzzy at the margins. Let’s see how.

The President is the pinnacle of the Executive Branch. He enforces laws, either through bureaucrats, police powers, or the military (listed in order of decreasing danger presented to the average citizen). He has sole authority when it comes to foreign policy and is commander in chief of the military. Yet Congress must approve treaties and declare war. Right there you start to see how the separation is more conceptual than absolute. The laws the President executes (hence the Executive Branch) are written by Congress, although he (so far, only he) must also agree to sign them. If he vetoes them, the Congress with a super-majority can override his veto. Clear as mud?

The President has broad authority to set standards for how his branch executes the law. For example, he may tell the Department of Homeland Security to arrest violent criminal aliens as a priority, which does not mean all other persons here illegally are off the hook. Just that there are limited resources, and all the laws cannot be executed equally. Or he could tell the Internal Revenue Service to focus on corporate tax cheats rather than individuals. Or the Department of Justice to seek out certain kinds of discrimination. All of that is within his purview, although the Courts and the Congress may disagree with it.

The Congress has the power of the purse, that is, they control the money flow. This sounds very powerful, and it is, but it is the ultimate double-edged sword. First, authorizations (permission to do something) and appropriations (dollars to do something) have to be passed as bills into law, meaning they have to survive a committee process, floor votes, and sometimes super-majorities, not to mention getting the President’s signature after all that. The more Congress specifies the details, the more power they have, but also the more accountability. Members sometimes put into law “spend $x dollars with Y company to make Z product” which is called an earmark and can be (almost always is) a corrupt practice. But if they say “spend $x dollars on foreign aid” the Executive Branch might do something they don’t like. So they try to be just specific enough.

All of which leads to the argument about how the President spends the money. To know whether he is abiding by the Congress’ intent, you have to know the exact language in the original authorization and appropriation, items buried deep in thousands of pages in the federal register. Suffice it to say that many of the people talking about such things today in the media have not done that research, which means they don’t know what they’re talking about. And then there is the timing issue. Appropriated money has to be spent within a specific time frame, usually one fiscal year (October-September). So one can’t say the Executive Branch is defying the Congress (definitively) during the fiscal year, because the game is not over yet. And any President can pause any spending to review it for legal or policy reasons, and they do so all the time.

Sometimes there are fundamental arguments. Democratic-controlled Congresses in the 1980s passed the (first) Boland amendment (named for Massachusetts Democratic Representative Edward Boland) which restricted US Intelligence Agencies from providing any funding to the Nicaraguan Contras. Legitimate power of the purse, or unconstitutional limit on the President’s foreign policy authority? The Reagan White House read the amendment literally, and sent money from the National Security Council (which is not an intelligence agency) to the Contras. Then Congress passed another Boland Amendment prohibiting any transfer of US funds to the Contras, nor the use of any appropriations to arrange funding for the Contras. But President Reagan decided the Congress could not tell him he couldn’t cut a deal with Iran to fund the Contras! Neither side went to court, fearing they might lose and set a precedent.

Here’s a hypothetical. If the power of the purse is so clear, why can’t Congress simply say the President has a compensation of one dollar per year, and nothing for the White House as an institution? The fact that the President receives a compensation is in the Constitution (but not how much), as well as the fact his compensation can’t be changed during his term, but couldn’t Congress just practically zero him out and make him irrelevant? Obviously not, but why not?

This is where the third branch comes in: the Judiciary Branch. They were considered by the Founders to be the least powerful branch. Members had to be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, which meant both the other branches could influence who sat in the courts. Congress even has the ability to limit some of the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction (what cases or concepts they can review), an extremely powerful but rarely invoked authority. The Judiciary Branch really marked out its territory in the case of Marbury v. Madison, when the Supreme Court ruled that it was the deciding authority for what is or is not constitutional. The court ruled that the US Constitution implied that someone–in their view the Supreme Court–has to be the final arbiter of constitutionality. This made them the referee in battles between the states and federal government, between the Executive and Legislative Branches, and even between competing constitutional rights (think life and choice, for example).

But they have no power to enforce their decisions. President Andrew Jackson almost certainly did not say, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” but he did defy the Chief Justice’s ruling in a case about the Cherokee Nation. Abraham Lincoln ignored the Supreme Court’s overruling his suspension of habeus corpus during the civil war, and FDR cowed the court (when it ruled much of his New Deal unconstitutional) by threatening to pack it with new appointees. Events like Richard Nixon’s agreeing to give up his secret Oval Office tapes because the court ordered it are actually more of the exception than the rule in highly controversial cases.

Let’s take a current example to see how all this plays out. President Trump has threatened–and begun the process of–dismantling the US Agency for International Development (US AID). It is written into law, so he can’t just do that, can he? Well, he can certainly stop its spending for review, and that review can take time. At what point does it become something more like a refusal to spend (called impoundment in federal appropriations language)? That would be a court’s call, as an argument between the branches.

Can he fire all the employees? Yes, but there is a process for that which must be followed. Is he following the process? Again, there is a labor relations board which must rule on that. Oh, and the President has vacated this board’s members, so it can’t rule because it lacks a quorum. Another case to be made to the courts. How much of the funding can he redirect? Each line item in the authorizations and appropriations has to be reviewed for how specific it was, and how much leeway the Executive Branch has. Given Congress’ desire to be more general, I would bet there is a lot of leeway, but again, that will be up to the courts. A District court judge just ruled that the Administration does have to pay for those commitments which were already made; this is a peculiarity of foreign aid. Much of it is paid retroactively to NGOs, charities or governments. US AID officials sign a contract which instructs the aid recipient how to spend and on what, then promises to reimburse them when they demonstrate they have complied. The administration stopped even these payments, and the court (rightly in my opinion) said, “not so fast, a contract is a contract.” Little reported in the headlines (From the Washington Post: “‘Unlawful’ suspension of USAID funding probably violated Constitution, judge says”) was that the judge confirmed that the administration could stop all prospective payments, which are far larger.

The headlines are often misleading in these cases, as I have pointed out before, because controversy attracts eyeballs. There are forty-six current court cases (according to the NY Times) against the Trump administration. None have yet made it to the Supreme Court for final determination. As each judge at each level weighs in, media (both legacy and digital) trumpet (pun intended) the results with “unconstitutional” or “vindicated” headlines/chyrons. But none of these verdicts are final until the Supreme Court decides.

Another recent example involves the Executive Branch ignoring court decisions. The Trump administration allegedly (at the time I write this, the facts aren’t all in) sent Venezuelan illegal aliens to prisons in El Salvador despite a district court judge’s injunction. Assume for a second that it’s true: they ignored the court. What happens now? The judge could find some officials in contempt, but what would that mean? Who would jail them? The administration has already sent a case to the Supreme Court asking that the very recent (post 1960s) practice of district courts issuing nationwide injunctions be invalidated, which would either enable effective government or precede authoritarianism, depending on your views of the administration.

Also, the courts have often stated they won’t rule on “Political Questions” a doctrine which holds that there are disagreements that are either outside the court’s jurisdiction or beyond its competence. In so doing, the Judiciary Branch says in effect, “don’t drag us into your political disagreements, work it out as politics between the parties.” While this may seem cowardly to some, it avoids the court setting precedents over issues that then resonate throughout the entire system. It’s like Mom & Dad telling the boys to “work it out for themselves,” because neither of them will like their parents’ intervention.

Perhaps this clarifies the separation of powers. More likely, it doesn’t. That’s because, contra what the talking heads say online, it isn’t always clear who has the right to do what. And even when it is, there are limits and loopholes and things that nobody wants to argue about in court, because while the argument is still active, either side can win. And the parties involved often switch sides based on who sits in what office. Once the Supreme Court rules in such cases, the game is over.

Now is the time for all good people to choose a side. I ask you: are you pro- or anti-hammer? Don’t temporize, don’t ask for clarification. Hammers are as obvious and tangible a thing as there is: everybody has held one in their hands. Now admit it: which are you?

My friends, all being intelligent, reasonable people, will of course object to this rush to judgment. “Pat,” they’ll say, “hammers are just tools. Tools can be used for good or evil. You can’t automatically and conclusively judge them, only how they are used.”

Poppycock (that’s British for bullsh!t). Hammers can kill people, just ask the Beatles. Even without evil intent, just used as sport, they can be deadly. Hammers are prone to misuse: I used a hammer once to nudge a pane of glass into place with disastrous consequences. And the numbers of times we all have smashed our fingers! In today’s modern world, hammers are unnecessary: think of all the Ikea products you can assemble without ever using a hammer!

Those smug hammer-enthusiasts will counter that hammers don’t kill people, people do. Few things are as satisfying as hitting the nail on the head: that’s why the saying exists, for Pete’s sake! Hammers are safe when used correctly, most hammer collectors are fine people who would never misuse them, and if all else fails, hammers are a fine form of self-defense.

Some of you may be thinking I’ve lost it. Others intuit a defense of the Second Amendment. You’re both wrong (maybe not the first group; the jury is still out on my sanity). I want to talk today about Trump’s favorite word: tariffs. I wrote about candidate Trump’s love of tariffs back before the election, but now we have actual tariff proposals, counters, and changes. And commentary, so much commentary, very little of which is coherent.

The first point about tariffs you already know: they are a tool, and just that. It is true that tariffs (specifically the Smoot-Hawley legislation) were a massively contributing factor to the Great Depression. It is also true tariffs were a primary source of government income for centuries before that event. Were all those governments so stupid? No, they avoided highly-unpopular personal or income taxes by using tariffs. But tariffs don’t work well within a free-trading system, so they eventually went extinct, right? Like buggy whips?

Well, no. Countries around the world have used tariffs and continue to do so. Ronald Reagan slapped quotas and tariffs on Japanese automakers and electronics back in the 1980s, with great effect. By the way, the use of a quota and accompanying high tariff for everything exported about the quota is the same method used by Canada to protect its dairy industry today. No one ends up paying the tariff (which can reach almost 300%!), because the quota simply limits American dairy competition with the Canadian domestic producers. Germany tariffs American autos, Japan tariffs American beef, and so forth. I ask again: are all these governments stupid?

No. Tariffs may protect domestic industry, or help it grow. But not if your country can’t make the product for technical (think TSMC for high-end chips) or environmental (think Tequila or Champagne) reasons, or if your domestic producers simply see the tariff as a chance to raise their own prices and reap greater profit. Tariffs may raise revenue (from whom, ahh, that is a good question for further down the page). But not if you remove them, or people substitute other domestic products for the tariff’d ones, or the companies go ahead and move production to your country. Tariffs may start a trade war as other countries post reciprocal tariffs. But wait a minute. If Trump’s tariffs are a stupid idea that only taxes Americans, what are Canada’s/Mexico’s/the EU’s tariffs in response? Are those governments that stupid?

Earthy Metaphor: President Trump takes a dump on the Presidential seal rug in the middle of the Oval Office. Would you expect Prime Minister Carney (Canada) or Presidenta Sheinbaum (pronounced SHANE-baum, not SHINE-baum; she’s Mexican, not from Baltimore) to do the same in their respective offices? Or perhaps they would refrain from a similarly stupid act?

About who pays tariffs, a meal culpa (times three). In my breezy coverage of Trump’s tariff ideas pre-election, I suggested the exporting country pays the tariff. This is not technically true. The actual tariff payment is made by the importing company, whatever its nationality. But who really pays it? Everybody and nobody. The importer pays the foreign producer for the product, and then on top of that pays the US government the tariff for that product. But the importer is a business, not a charity: they require profit, and the tariff eats into their profit. What do they do? Well, one thing they can do is raise the price of the good they imported when selling it to the retailer/consumer. In this manner, the end-user or buyer (you and me) pay the tariff. You’ll hear free-traders and progressives alike making this argument.

The problem is, it’s not that simple. If you suddenly raise the price on an item, especially a lot, fewer people will buy it. Or they’ll buy a substitute that is cheaper. If there is no sale, there is no profit at all. So the importer does NOT pass along the entire tariff. The importer “eats” some of the tariff, because making less profit is better than no sale at all. And the importer may renegotiate with the producer, asking them to lower their price (which eats into the producer’s profits), thus sharing the tariff pain, and reducing the tariff (which is based on the price). The same thing goes on throughout the retail chain, with intermediate businesses making fine-tuned decisions about how much they can raise prices, not just passing along the whole tariff. There’s a word to describe businesses which simply pass long any external costs imposed upon them: bankrupt.

Simile: Like asking who pays for the US Army? Well, the federal government. But where do they get the money? From taxpayers, and from tariffs, and from asset-seizures, and from foreign purchases of US bonds. So you, white-collar criminals, and the Chinese government all pay for the US Army. So what?

Now nothing I have said should be construed as suggesting the Trump administration has a finely-tuned, coherent strategy to use the tool called tariffs. They have articulated different reasons for different tariffs, which is appropriate. One constant is that America will place reciprocal tariffs on anyone who tariffs it. Even this doesn’t always make sense. For example, an exact reciprocal tariff on Canadian dairy products would have little effect; they’re worried about American competition, not vice versa. But let’s assume there are competent bureaucrats in the US federal government who can identify the correct equivalent items to tariff.

According to US officials, some of the large, across-the-board tariffs against Canada and Mexico are related to immigration and fentanyl trafficking. There is nothing wrong with using tariffs to garner non-economic policy outcomes. Trump did so very effectively with Colombia with respect to repatriating migrants. But such broad tariffs are like putting a nail between each of your fingers and swinging the hammer wildly: perhaps somewhat effective, but painfully costly.

My best guess here is Trump is using these Canadian and Mexican tariffs as a negotiating ploy. Immigration is dramatically down, but he needs to keep it there. Fentanyl deaths are also declining. I bet Trump will continue to impose, delay, or limit these tariffs, asking for more support from Canada and Mexico, until some point in the near future when he declares victory (for his policies). How much economic pain will that entail? How many fingers will get hit?

There is no legitimate immigration/drug-snuggling rationale for the Canadian tariffs; I don’t think there is a good economic rationale, either. I believe the tariffs with Canada are also personal. First, Trump hates Trudeau, and sought every opportunity to demean him, even after it was clear he was stepping down. Trump also has this odd obsession with enlarging America, and Canada became one of his chief targets, as impossible as that is. Canadians are pissed, frankly, and new Prime Minister (pending election) Carney is feeding off the disgust and talking tough. He has to. His party was set to be wiped out in the elections, but after Trump’s riling up the Canucks, Carney is now tied with Pierre Polievre, the more conservative (relatively) candidate and party.

Whoever wins would do well to look south, all the way to Mexico City, for a different approach. Why? While I admit they’re in the right, and have a right to be upset, Canada cannot engage in a long-lasting trade-war with America. Both sides would be hurt, but one side would have bruises and the other a gaping chest wound. Or a traumatic amputation.

In the end, Canada has to come up with a way to stand up to Trump without burning the log cabin down. Which is why Mexico City is the place to look. Presidenta Sheinbaum has masterfully responded to Trump’s provocations. While some expats friends have reveled on social media about imaginary responses from her to Trump, belittling him (they like how it makes them feel; but they’re not real, because she is way too savvy to respond that way), she has instead demonstrated grace and resilience. She responds specifically to his requests, rather than trying to point out logical flaws or statistical errors. She actually at least tries to address her fellow President’s concerns. She remains respectful, at least of the office, if not the man.

Her results? A much better relationship, some appreciation from the White House (which is rare indeed), and a record approval rate in Mexico. You think this would all be obvious by now, but of course, one could also try to shut off the power to New England (Shout out to Doug Ford!). In the end, I think Mexico is going to trade additional tariffs on China for relief from the United States. For a variety of reasons that are unique to Mexico (and cited in this NY Times piece by Keith Bradsher), Mexico actually has the international right to drop major tariffs on China while China cannot (legally) respond. Look for la Presidenta (I checked, the Real Academia Española does recognize a feminine version of El Presidente) to do precisely that.

The reciprocal or retaliatory tariffs are another thing altogether, and it’s not clear in each case what goal Trump is seeking. Clearly the ones on China and Europe are different, and how they play out will be different. I’ll wait to see more information before I judge them, and suggest you do, too. I don’t believe tariffs are a great thing, or there is a finely-tuned Trump tariff strategy. I also reject the notion that tariffs “are the stupidest thing ever and no sane person could ever support them.” Because many nations, over many centuries, have used them. Like most things Trump, people immediately gravitate to either extreme, which is sad but predictable.

My advice? “Stay calm and mind the gap (in tariffs).”