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Have we become such chumps that we get angry at our President when he attempts to level the playing field for American workers? Young people today may find it hard to believe, but during the first half of my life nearly every product on store shelves was made in America. High paying manufacturing jobs were plentiful. Many American families could afford a home, a car, vacations, and college educations for the kids with the paycheck from one wage earner.

Americans are the most generous people in the world. After defeating Germany in WWII, we created and funded the European Recovery Plan, later renamed the Marshall Plan for its creator, Secretary of State George C. Marshall. It was designed to rebuild infrastructure and stabilize the war-torn economies of 17 central and southern European countries. At the same time, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur and a group of allies immediately set out to stabilize Japan after the war ended. In less than 30 years Japan had a thriving economy with the USA its largest trading partner. We could have forsaken both countries, but we didn’t.

We have made outsized contributions of money and manpower to NATO since its founding in 1949. Since NATO’s founding, U.S. Presidents have been cajoling member nations to fulfill their monetary commitments to the organization. Members continued to make promises, then renege. (Why would Canada meet its commitment to defense when it shares a border with a sugar daddy? Canada knows full well that if it were attacked, we would rush to their defense). When Trump called NATO members out by name, they finally acceded. For this success the media called him a bully. We are still picking up the tab for approximately 160,000 U.S. troops stationed overseas to protect ungrateful allies. The largest numbers are in Germany and Japan.

When an earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, or other natural disaster strikes anywhere in the world the USA is always the first to arrive on scene and provide the most aid. And for all we have done to help other countries, guess how much help we got after the devastating hurricanes hit Florida, Tennessee, and N. Carolina, or wildfires torched California. Yeah, you know.

Given the above, why is it unfair of us to demand that countries, friend and foe alike, stop treating us like their personal ATM? For decades Made in America products have been shut out of foreign markets by stiff tariffs and value added taxes charged on those products by our trading “partners”. States in the “rust belt” have experienced a continual gutting of their economies. Midwestern cities watched helplessly as factories closed, moving production to cheaper overseas/foreign facilities. Families were bankrupted and uprooted to find gainful employment elsewhere, often at lower hourly wages. Since 2000, more than 100,000 factories closed their doors leaving 4.7 million people unemployed. Self-serving Presidents, members of Congress, and CEOs, ignored the plight of the great U.S. middle class as manufacturing jobs disappeared.

The result of this carelessness is a staggering foreign trade deficit. Short term trade deficits are not necessarily bad. But when they recur year after year for decades, they actually become a sort of transfer of wealth. Americans are poorer because of the deficits. The 2023 U.S. trade deficit reached an all-time record of $1.2 trillion.

Our national security is threatened when we depend on foreigners to produce the steel we need to build ships, tanks, airplanes, and bullets. Our “leaders” have also put our health at risk by allowing the majority of medicines, specifically antibiotics, to be produced overseas. Our “leaders” lack of foresight has led to China producing over 40% of the antibiotics produced in the world. Let’s hope we are on good terms with the Chinese should there be a breakout of a disease requiring antibiotics for treatment.

It is ironic that it took a billionaire President to finally step up to protect our manufacturing base and defend the livelihood of our middle class. The Progressive Left is up in arms in declaring that President Trump is starting a tariff war. They are either blind, stupid, lying, or some combination of the above. Trump is not starting a tariff war. He is responding to an ongoing tariff war declared on U.S. manufacturing decades ago. He announced tariffs only against those countries who are exacting tariffs against our products. And in no case is he charging any more than what’s already being charged on U.S. exports. Therefore the name reciprocal.

Free trade is Trump’s ultimate goal. That means no tariffs charged on any products going from one country to another. That is exactly what the Trump tariffs are designed to achieve. He has repeatedly stated that he would remove U.S. tariffs if/when our trading partners remove theirs. Until then, to avoid tariffs, corporations are incented to build new manufacturing facilities in the U.S. Indeed, since he was inaugurated, multiple corporations including, Johnsons & Johnson, Taiwan Semiconductor, Softbank, the United Arab Emirates, Apple, and Nvidia, among others have pledged over $3 trillion in new manufacturing plants here in the states. Please remember he has been in office less than 90 days. For now, the best we can hope for is that the new tariffs begin to create fair trade.

For a while we will be forced to listen to foreign leaders and CEOs whining about how much Trump’s tariffs are going to cost the global economy. Of course they are whining. They are the ones who have been syphoning profits while looting American workers. Some of them will be forced to capitulate sooner as opposed to later. Perhaps we will see a real move toward free and fair trade in the not too distant future.

I hope you found the current blog informative. Thank you for taking the time to read it. Bob