Trump Adviser Releases Insane List of Demands for Tariffed Countries
Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser put out a list of outrageous demands Monday for other countries inflicted by the president’s tariffs to start “burden sharing.”
Stephen Miran, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, delivered a speech at the Hudson Institute complete with a to-do list for other countries looking to lighten the load that “unfair barriers to trade” and “unsustainable trade deficits” have supposedly inflicted on the United States.
Miran said that these factors had led to a “decline of our manufacturing workforce by over a third since its peak and a reduction in our share of world manufacturing production of 40 percent.”
It’s worth noting that while manufacturing employment has gone down, U.S. manufacturing output is up and nearing its all-time high of December 2007. Who exactly will actually work all of these hypothetical manufacturing jobs? No one seems to know! Trump’s own secretary of commerce said earlier this month that he planned to use automation to replace cheap labor, and the treasury secretary suggested Monday that maybe ousted federal workers could pick up some shifts.
Other countries should work to improve “burden sharing” to address the issues, a process that could take many forms, said Miran.
For instance, countries could roll over and accept Trump’s tariffs without retaliation. “Critically, retaliation will exacerbate rather than improve the distribution of burdens and make it even more difficult for us to finance global public goods,” Miran said in his remarks.
Miran said that countries could “stop unfair and harmful trading practices” by buying more American products, specifically noting that countries could boost defense spending and procurement from the U.S. by “taking strain off our servicemembers and creating jobs here.”
He also suggested that countries invest in U.S. manufacturing and open factories in the U.S. “They won’t face tariffs if they make their stuff in this country,” Miran said.
Finally, Miran said that countries could “simply write checks” to the Treasury Department.
The CEA chair did not indicate whether compliance with these suggestions would alleviate the—in some cases—very steep tariffs imposed by Trump.
Miran argued that other countries ought to comply with Trump’s demands for more money because of the “global public goods” that the U.S. provides, including global security and the dollar and other reserve assets, “which make possible the global trading and financial system which has supported the greatest era of prosperity mankind has ever known.
“In my view, to continue providing these twin global public goods, there needs to be improved burden-sharing at the global level,” Miran said. “If other nations want to benefit from the U.S. geopolitical and financial umbrella, then they need to pull their weight, and pay their fair share. The costs cannot be solely borne by everyday Americans who have already given so much.”
But that’s not how public goods work: If you have to pay to use them, then they’re not actually public goods.
Miran singled out China as America’s “biggest adversary” responsible for weakening U.S. manufacturing, and even blamed it for the 2008 financial crisis. Trump is currently mounting a trade war with Beijing, and threatened a new round of tariffs Monday, bringing the total tariff rate on imports from China to 104 percent.
Miran insisted that the U.S. would somehow survive not being able to do business with its largest trading partners. “America has plenty of substitution options: We can make stuff at home, or we can buy from countries that treat us fairly instead of from countries that take advantage of us,” he said. But last week, Trump placed tariffs of at least 10 percent on nearly every country.
Trump said Sunday that he’d told global leaders that he wanted to erase the U.S. trade deficit because he viewed any deficit as a “loss,” though that’s not quite how economics works.
