Tuesday, April 8, 2025
For conservatives, nothing symbolized this short-circuiting of debate so much as the decision to fly rainbow flags at U.S. embassies during Pride month. This practice, which began in 2011 during Barack Obama’s presidency, suggested that America’s formidable foreign-policy apparatus was being employed to support gay rights when, for example, 45 percent of the country opposed gay marriage. Whatever Cold War-era fondness conservatives still had for foreign aid quickly vanished. In 2011, after Ms. Clinton’s speech, Rick Perry, then the governor of Texas, said that support for L.G.B.T. rights abroad was “not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money.”
This Is Why Conservatives Turned Against Foreign Aid
Mr. Schmitz is the editor of the magazine Compact.
I would strongly prefer that the policy and methodology be scrapped entirely. But barring that, the administration should divide its results by four.
The Trump White House Cited My Research to Justify Tariffs. It Got It All Wrong.
Mr. Neiman was a Biden administration Treasury official who co-wrote trade-related academic research cited by the Trump White House.
Monday, April 7, 2025
WSJ ought to get used to the idea that the 10% duty rate will be the minimum rate for favored nations
Argentina Needs the Dollar More Than Ever
Argentina’s Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Tuesday in Washington. The Argentine ministry said the discussion with Mr. Greer was “to strengthen bilateral trade and begin laying the groundwork for a solid trade agreement.”
Trump had better watch out because his Tariff regimen is way worse than Smoot Hawley which brought down Hoover and gave us FDR
For Republicans, Tariffs Pose a Risk Like No Other
Trump’s political strength is built on the economy. If it sinks, he could drag his party down with him.
Sunday, April 6, 2025
India's Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi should eliminate every tariff Turkey has on U.S. made goods and then meet with Trump at the White House asking for a reduction of the duty rate of 26% to most country's rate of 10%
President Trump has imposed a 10% tariff on goods from countries that haven't caught his eye. Except for a few countries I expect that the after negotiations like that suggested for Modi of India that the rate of 10% will be applied on imports from most countries. Congress in the meantime should lock down the 10% rate with a KISS (keep it simple stupid) U.S. import tariff first suggested on a previous post where the new tariff law eliminates all previous ones for a new one that simply charges 10% of the invoice value from all countries. Second, he should have Elon Musk eliminate the staff devoted to the implementation of the ninety-nine chapter U.S. Tariff Schedule and release them and their private bureaucrat followers to find employment in some other field.
April 7 from Wall Street Journal Editorial calling Trump's bluff
Trump just said “Just had a very productive call with To Lam, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, who told me that Vietnam wants to cut their Tariffs down to ZERO if they are able to make an agreement with the U.S. I thanked him on behalf of our Country, and said I look forward to a meeting in the near future.”
WSJ's opinion is that The Vietnam offer is a shrewd one. Mr. Trump hit Hanoi with a 46% arbitrary tariff last week, and To Lam offers zero rates in return. Zero would be the best outcome for both countries, but if a deal ends up with a far lower tariff rate, it will be an improvement.
Hey, knowing Trump he will insist on the 10% baseline duty for Vietnam just like he has put on for everyone else without a premium rate. And as for India where the fuck is Modi? How did he let Vietnam get in first?
Institutions such as Harvard, the administration’s most recent target, have vast financial resources, great prestige and broad networks of influential alumni. If they do not or cannot resist the arbitrary application of government power, who else can? Without acts of resistance, what protects the rule of law? I hope and trust, in the time of testing that lies ahead, universities will both reform themselves and stand up to external pressure. Their future and America’s are in the balance.
Good Manners
Dear Diary:
I was strolling through Joan of Arc Park on the Upper West Side. An older woman was walking her little dog in front of me.
A young man, evidently in a hurry, passed me and cut right in front of the woman, causing her to stop short.
“Sorry,” the young man said. “Please excuse me.”
The woman nodded and said it was fine.
“I was actually talking to your dog,” the young man said.
— Jim Pavia
Friday, April 4, 2025
Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam and India ought to give Trump a voluntary elimination of their own import tariffs in a bid to get their rate down to 10% like South America
Trump’s Tariffs Don’t Apply to Chips, but Taiwan Remains Wary
The chip companies in Taiwan, the center of the global supply chain, are expected to face pressure from Washington to invest more in the U.S.
Meathead doesn't understand our “America’s Edge,” where Anne-Marie Slaughter argued that power in the 21st century would accrue to nations that put themselves in the center of networks, and that America was well suited to play that role. We have a diverse populace with global connections, alliances across two great oceans, the greatest universities with large foreign student bodies.
As a long time food importer I was never impressed by Food and Drug testing and safety enforcement
F.D.A. Layoffs Could Raise Drug Costs and Erode Food Safety
Trump cutbacks were supposedly aimed at administrators. But scientists in food and drug-testing labs and policy experts who advance generic drug approvals were also dismissed.
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Trump hits everyone not on his shit list with a minimum 10% tariff. Now he has to get Congress to eliminate the ninety-nine chapter U.S. Tariff Schedule and release the bureaucrats enforcing them and the private bureaucrat followers to find employment elsewhere
Friday, February 14, 2025
Trump Widens Trade Fight to Include Global Taxes and Regulation
President Trump and his team are keen on imposing tariffs on imports but instead of a mercurial approach with a decision one day and a reversal the next it is suggested he and his administration first apply a KISS (keep it simple stupid) approach. First, have Congress make a new tariff law that eliminates all previous ones for a new one that simply charges 5% of the invoice value. Most importantly this duty should be on all imports on all goods from all countries without exception. Second, he should have his cohort Elon Musk eliminate the staff devoted to the implementation of the ninety-nine chapter U.S. Tariff Schedule and release them and their private bureaucrat followers to find employment in some other field. Additional tariffs could be applied by the executive branch to friend or foe and complicated or simple as they would like but never by modifying the fixed 5% rate passed by Congress applied to every country without exception.
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