Love this analysis and I’ve been wondering why no one talks about it. There are two motivations that makes sense to me for why analysts don’t talk about this:
Political framing—putting American interests first is the way to persuade policymakers to listen to you.
Genuine nationalism—these analysts actually care more about the harms to Americans than to foreigners.
It bothers me to not be able to distinguish between these.
If you haven’t read it, this article is a convincing argument for why containing harmful policies by the West should be a main focus for development policy.
Think the main reason it doesn’t get talked about much is that impoverishing other countries was baked into the whole “America First” idea in the first place, including the [obviously incorrect] beliefs that trade is essentially zero sum so making these countries poorer is necessary to make Americans richer. But Trump also got votes from a lot of Americans whose main concern was rising prices, so it’s particularly salient that the first major effect of blanket tariff increase on consumer goods will be their cost of living going up...
(I think also the effects of US tariff levels on the typical <$2 a day person are relatively indirect: most of them aren’t involved in direct exports to the US from countries likely to be major tariff losers, especially if he turns out to be far more interested in restricting imports of Chinese manufactured alternatives to US luxury goods than cheap foodstuffs. Lower global economic output will slow their local economies down too, but that impact feels less tangible, and to an extent is balanced out by other factors like China’s increased interest in trading with the global South and whatever happens to energy prices.)
Love this analysis and I’ve been wondering why no one talks about it. There are two motivations that makes sense to me for why analysts don’t talk about this:
Political framing—putting American interests first is the way to persuade policymakers to listen to you.
Genuine nationalism—these analysts actually care more about the harms to Americans than to foreigners.
It bothers me to not be able to distinguish between these.
If you haven’t read it, this article is a convincing argument for why containing harmful policies by the West should be a main focus for development policy.
Think the main reason it doesn’t get talked about much is that impoverishing other countries was baked into the whole “America First” idea in the first place, including the [obviously incorrect] beliefs that trade is essentially zero sum so making these countries poorer is necessary to make Americans richer. But Trump also got votes from a lot of Americans whose main concern was rising prices, so it’s particularly salient that the first major effect of blanket tariff increase on consumer goods will be their cost of living going up...
(I think also the effects of US tariff levels on the typical <$2 a day person are relatively indirect: most of them aren’t involved in direct exports to the US from countries likely to be major tariff losers, especially if he turns out to be far more interested in restricting imports of Chinese manufactured alternatives to US luxury goods than cheap foodstuffs. Lower global economic output will slow their local economies down too, but that impact feels less tangible, and to an extent is balanced out by other factors like China’s increased interest in trading with the global South and whatever happens to energy prices.)