🌐 Tariffs are no cure for America's future fiscal solvency

AI-driven growth + evidence-driven tax and spending reform offer a better path

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,

A brief word from Scott Bessent, the American treasury secretary, on an important goal of US tariff-trade policy:

We’re setting the stage for long-term economic growth. We were on our way to a financial crisis. … And with that gigantic government spending, it was unsustainable. If you look back to 1998, if you look back [to 2007] — right before everything looked great and then everything collapsed. So we have taken us off that trajectory and we’re putting ourselves back onto a sound trajectory.

Wait, is it debt and deficits that we're worried about here, Secretary Bessent? If so, there are better ways to deal with red ink than tariffs, which have massive downsides: They a) strangle the Smithian comparative-advantage engine that powers prosperity, b) throttle the spread of technology and other innovations across borders, and c) shield companies from the Schumpeterian competition that helps spur invention. More specifically, the Trump tariffs will raise taxes and prices, eroding household income and spending power. Then there’s the continuing uncertainty that continues to erode business confidence. Bad, bad, bad.

In short, there are better approaches.