Does Trump really want a return to the good old days?

Does Trump really want a return to the good old days?

I saw a recipe “Preparing poached lobster with morels and favas”. Shouldn’t it be illegal to poach lobsters?

Trump’s exempted smartphones from his Chinese tariffs. I’m sure that Apple’s Tim Cook’s $1 million donation to the inauguration had nothing to do with it. Right?

Here are the countries with whom we have a trade surplus. Why then are they still hit with Trump’s 10 percent tariff? Trump should immediately rescind his tariffs with these countries.

December 2023 Trade Surpluses ($ billions)

Rank	Country	Surplus
1	Netherlands	43.7
2	Hong Kong	23.6
3	United Arab Emirates	18.3
4	Australia	17.7
5	Belgium	15.8
6	Panama	10.7
7	United Kingdom	9.8
8	Dominican Republic	6.0
9	Brazil	5.7
10	Argentina	5.0
11	Guatemala	4.9
12	Bahamas	3.8
13	Peru	3.3
14	Chile	3.2
15	Qatar	2.6

On “Liberation Day” Trump said “For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” the president said on Liberation Day. “American steel workers, auto workers, farmers and skilled craftsmen—we have a lot of them here with us today—they really suffered gravely.” That, of course, is pure hyperbole. If Trump were correct then the states that “suffered” from manufacturing loss would be worse off. None of them are. In fact they are all better off economically with low unemployment rates.

Personally, I think that Trump imposed those tariffs to help him politically in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio. Ironically, although those states suffered displacement under NAFTA they actually benefitted. Those who talk about job loss forget to mention the jobs gained. Studies find that job losses were offset by gains. Yes manufacturing jobs in the US have declined but trade caused only about 20 percent of the job loss while technology accounted for 80 percent. Michigan is estimated to have loss around 220,000 manufacturing jobs due to NAFTA. However, the Congressional Research Service finds that overall there has been a net gain in jobs. Michigan now has over a million jobs directly linked to international trade and workers in trade intensive industries earn 18 percent more than in other industries. A politician railing about job loss should first address why those jobs left in the first place. Mexico has more than 40 free trade agreements than the United States giving a company more duty-free access than if it were in the US. So the lack of free trade agreements is also costing the US jobs.

Trump hated NAFTA and replaced it with the US Canada Mexico Agreement. Then Trump reneged on his own agreement hitting Canada and Mexico with 25 percent tariffs under the guise of a national “emergency.” Why would any country believe that whatever deal Trump makes will be adhered to?

Yes trade causes disruptions in the labor force but accounts for only about 5 percent of the 20 million Americans who change jobs involuntarily yearly due to layoffs or plant closures. Technology imposes a larger threat to American jobs. Over 50 percent of American jobs are vulnerable to technology. I guess Trump should now start imposing tariffs on companies that displace workers due to technological change. Ned Ludd lives!

Trump may be a short timer but if JD Vance succeeds him – which I doubt – his industrial policy will continue. Vance, too, believes that free trade agreements destroyed middle class jobs in the Rust Belt and decreased wages. Again, this is not true. If the middle class decreased it was only because they moved up rather than down the economic ladder. Factory towns are gone because fewer workers are required to make the same output. American manufacturers now operate more efficiently, use fewer natural resources, require less backbreaking labor, produce less pollution and employ more highly educated people than ever. No tariff or trade restriction is going to reverse those trends. China and Mexico did not kill factory jobs, technology did. The share of households earning more than $100,000 has tripled over the past five decades, and the share earning less than $35,000 fell by 25%.

So do you think that there are bunches of unemployed people out there pining to work in factories? Apparently Vance and Trump think so, although in reality they probably don’t. The manufacturing workforce is typically men without a college education. Today domestic manufacturers cannot find enough workers to fill job vacancies. February’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed 7.6 million vacancies. Is Vance – or more importantly Trump – going to admit more immigrants in to the country to fill those jobs? Not likely.

So all this posturing about job loss due to trade and bringing manufacturing back to the US is nothing but a ruse. Labor intensive manufacturing jobs left the US because of labor costs and the manufacturing that remained is mostly tech heavy. One firm just announced that in order to hire a person, managers have to document that the job could not be done by AI (no Linda McMahon, that’s not the steak sauce). The company is now going to use an AI system to automate the storage and retrieval of inventory. Instead of needing several facilities with 50 or so employees it will need only one with 4 people and they’re all technicians.

It is highly unlikely that either Trump or Vance will change their tune but as my father used to say “Harold that sounds good – if you are interested in sounds.”