by S. Karol Paul at Paul Navarro’s Taking Back Trump’s America
“To preserve the balance of trade in favor of a nation ought to be a leading aim of its policy.” – Alexander Hamilton
President Trump has consistently been attacked for his tariff policies since his 2016 campaign, despite the fact that the tariffs he invoked as president led to the creation of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs and billions of dollars in domestic investment. The Trump China tariffs, in particular, were so successful that even Joe Biden refused to remove them. In August 2023, President Trump proposed a 10% universal baseline border tariff policy for his second term, which was met with even more vitriol from CCP-funded, globalist, mainstream media outlets: The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. In reality, Trump’s 10% universal baseline border tariffs will create millions of jobs, grow U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), and reduce inflation.
For decades, economists and federal agencies have used outdated economic models, for example, the standard Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model, to evaluate how international trade deals will help bolster the U.S. economy and support American workers. However, trade models like GTAP are flawed because they do not account for real world circumstances, which has misled U.S. policymakers into making international trade decisions based on securing the cheapest goods for U.S. consumers rather than ensuring American workers have jobs.
For example, the original GTAP model assumes full employment in the economy under all potential international trade agreement scenarios. This is problematic because if economists and data analysts utilize GTAP to weigh potential benefits and consequences of entering the U.S. into a particular trade deal, U.S. job loss because of a predicted surge in imports is not reflected.
Additionally, the original GTAP model does not exhibit how capital investment—money invested by firms in industrial plants and equipment—is impacted by unbalanced trade,…
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