Trump’s Factory Revival Is Happening
Think what you will of President Trump’s chaotic-seeming tariff policies. The ostensible goal — the revitalization of US manufacturing — is of decisive importance for the success of the nation.
Think what you will of President Trump’s chaotic-seeming tariff policies. The ostensible goal — the revitalization of US manufacturing — is of decisive importance for the success of the nation. Or put another way, America is unlikely to maintain global primacy with finance, services, and high-tech alone. All the capital, nice hotels, and mind-bending apps in the world can’t replace factories. While tariffs may prove a good start toward this goal, they are hardly sufficient.
Tariffs are hardly a MAGA invention, of course. On the contrary, the United States has levied protective tariffs almost from its origins as a nation. Tariffs and import substitution formed one of the central pillars of Alexander Hamilton’s political economy.
Today, Europe screams about Trumpian tariffs, but the Continent has been reluctant to lower its own historically high protective barriers, most of them based on non-tariff regulatory policies. Canada, too, has been very protectionist and for a long time. Now, after decades in which Washington put global integration over its own workers and industry, America is playing the same game.
Economic Dynamism
The Price of Stagnation: Britain’s Retreat from Dynamism
We face a basic issue: we do not let cities or communities grow or die.
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London and the Architecture of Creative Growth
Preserving London's creative dynamism will require humility from policymakers and a commitment to keeping the city liveable.
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Is Economics a Failure?
Rather than ending with “economics is broken,” Alexander Rosenberg’s deliberately provocative book 'Blunt Instrument' argues that “economics is useful for a different reason than economists often say.” That is a serious and worthwhile thesis.
Locke, Meet Claude
The concern is not regulation per se. It is a regulation that outruns its justification by arriving before the evidence, foreclosing the technology before its benefits are understood, and insulating the powerful from competition that would otherwise discipline them. That is the pattern worth resisting.
