You have probably seen this by now, but in case you haven't, here is Nancy Pelosi in 1996 talking sense! I didn't think she had it in her, given the inanities she has been spouting for the last quarter century. I don't see much if any difference between what she said then about tariffs, trade imbalances, and trade reciprocity and what Trump is saying now.
Part of what enrages contemporary Dems about Trump is that he has (a) stolen their thunder, and (b) is actually doing things they only talked about doing, e. g, curtailing waste, fraud, and abuse at the federal level, controlling the borders, and shrinking the size of the federal government.
Blinded by their mindless rage, they cannot assess policy proposals on their own merits, but only on whether or not they are supported by Trump. If Trump is for it, they are against it, no matter what it is, and vice versa.
Anti-Trump Dems cannot stand the man because he has transformed the fat-cat GOP into a people's party. The Never-Trump Republicans cannot stand him because he gate-crashed their rich guy club and exposed the bow-tied Beltway/Bulwark boys and girls for the effete and epicene bunch they are. Interestingly, Trump has won the sympathy, though not the full support, of the socialist outlet, The Militant. See here for a recent article in support of my assertion.
But he wins because he is loaded too, and more importantly, loves his country, its people, and has the biggest cojones of the toughest hombre on the world stage at present.
Interesting about Pelosi. But does this mean that tariffs are any good, indeed that they are not dangerous?
Practically all mainstream economists think they are very bad. They might be wrong, but this economist does not think so.
Hi Ed, good to hear from you.
Econ is not my wheel house, so I have no fixed views here. But the USA was on an unsustainable course until Trump and his team started taking action. We’ll have to see what happens.
I don’t know what Ed thinks of Paul Krugman, but I suspect his grip on economic reality is tenuous indeed. Here are a couple of old posts by me on Krugman:
https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2012/10/left-right-and-debt.html
https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2012/11/its-the-welfare-state-stupid.html
I am not a fan of Krugman.
On Trump’s policy generally, it looks as though he wants a return to 1970s style manufacturing: heavy industry, auto and so on. In the 1970s we got industrial action on a large scale from powerful unions. The UK miners strike of 1984-5 (which I supported as a young leftist) was broken by Thatcher and we never saw unrest on that scale again. The left at that time was a staunch opponent of globalisation, i.e. the offshoring of old industry and the development of new means of working. There was some fairness in that. The damage wrought upon the industrial heartlands of the UK North, and the ship building centres in Scotland, was a terrible thing. The same happened in the US. I read Vance’s book with interest.
Now left and right have seemingly reversed. The US right wants to block offshoring by means of heavy tariffs, and attract heavy industry back. I was fascinated that Trump invited a group of United Auto Workers union members to his tariff speech last week. Now that he has blocked all competition, they will be able to go on strike again.
Let’s see what happens. My view: a total disaster for the US, but a great opportunity for the UK, Europe, and all the old British ‘commonwealth’ countries (Canada, Australia, South Africa) who are now firmly united in spirit in their hatred of the US. I am even feeling a sort of warmth for the French, although not too much.
Either we get our manufacturing base back, or we are at the mercy of our enemies, and we lose our freedom.
Quite right, Joe. It is outrageous that we should be dependent on the ChiComs for pharmaceuticals and so much else.
The majority of the semiconductors we need come from Taiwan . . . you know what that means.
The Biden-Harris admin was an effing disaster. He should have been impeached and removed from office. Anyone who supports the Dementocrats has no knowledge of or interest his long-term best self-interest.
Like Pelosi, Chuck Schumer talked sense back in 1996. Elon explains.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/04/04/wellwellwell-look-what-chucky-schumer-said-about-illegals-in-1996-n2654976
That Chucky the chucklephuck might get primaried by AOC, she of the occasional cortex, shows that the Dems have a death wish.
I hope their wish comes true. But we do need an opposition party for the sake of checks and balances in this once-great republic of ours. A party that is not composed of clowns and fools and know-nothings and the merely power-hungry. To hell with them all and the jackasses they rode in on.
This article totally nails it regarding the tariffs and what they are for:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/04/is_bipartisan_nationalism_possible.html
It also shows how the Democrats USED to care about American workers and their families.
But now the Democrats are in bed with Satan, the spirit which always neages.
From the Am Thinker article:
>>Classical theory may not care where the steel mills, chip foundries, shipyards, research labs, aircraft plants, oil fields, and supply chains are, but the real world of power politics does.
When Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) denounces President Trump’s tariffs as “nothing more than an enormous tax hike on American consumers” he is acting as nothing more than a partisan hack. He knows one of the main reasons Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election is the inflation caused by trillions of dollars in wild spending. So, he must shift the blame for inflation to President Trump. He cannot seriously consider policies meant to rebuild American industry any more than he can policies meant to reduce obscene levels of inflationary deficit spending because he cannot raise his vision to the national level. This is the old, failed “resistance” mode that the Dems resorted to during the first Trump term. In 2017, the incoming GOP President flipped the party to give the nationalist wing the majority. This is why I supported him from the moment he came down the escalator. Trump was naive enough to believe that he could work with Democrats on issues they had always supported, such as trade policy and infrastructure. But they refused then and are making that same mistake again.<<
I see no one has addressed my point about unions. They reached their greatest power in the UK in the late 1970s, and brought the country low with a wave of industrial unrest. They were destroyed in the 1980s by the competition brought about by globalisation, i.e. offshoring. No one in the UK mourns their passing.
They were closely allied to the British Left, just as the UAW was aligned with the American Left.
Tariffs on autos will eliminate competition. Will it increase the power of the American unions? If so, is that a good thing? Will they continue their alliance with the Republicans or not? Interesting times.
This talk by an English businessman completely nails it. Economists are mere theoreticians. This man has been in the import and offshore business for 40 years, and his predictions are grim.