Joe Biden’s Tariffs

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden has raised the tariff on steel imports from The People’s Republic of China, a tariff former President Donald Trump initiated (although Trump badly diluted the effect and importance of the tariff by applying it against our allies, also). The Wall Street Journal‘s editors are in a bodice-ripping panic attack over Biden’s move.

Didn’t President Biden promise a better trade policy than his predecessor? Well, he now appears to be in a race with Donald Trump to be Protectionist in Chief. Witness his pitch for new tariffs at a campaign stop on Wednesday in Pittsburgh.

The editors’ angst also is broadly irrational (which is the nature of angst, but it’s irrational in another way, too).

Steel making is energy-intensive, and Mr Biden’s green energy agenda threatens to make US companies less competitive.

That’s also true, but it’s wholly irrelevant to the question of tariffs, which is the subject of the editors’ hysteria. The editors also seem unable to discriminate between two primary types of tariffs.

There are tariffs for protectionism, and these are dismal failures.

There are tariffs for foreign policy, and these can be dismal failures or outstanding successes, depending on the underlying policy and the moral and political courage of politicians to set serious tariffs and then strictly enforce them.

Tariffs against People’s Republic of China steel imports could, and should, fall into the latter category; the broad underlying foreign policy is one of making it supremely expensive to do any sort of business with the enemy nation.

For my money, Biden’s PRC steel tariff is just virtue-signaling as he continues to kowtow to the PRC otherwise all across the board. He needs to deepen his steel tariff and extend it across a broad and deep range of PRC exports. In parallel, he needs—and Congress needs to support him—to make it supremely expensive for American businesses to export technology-related goods and services, and to transfer intellectual property and knowledge, to the PRC.

An example of Biden’s kowtowing is his expected move to cancel

The Ambler Access Road project…that would connect a mining district in west-central Alaska to the Dalton Highway that runs through the middle of the state. The operations in the mining district could provide a steady domestic supply of copper, zinc, lead, gold, silver, and cobalt, which are strategic elements needed for manufacturing wind turbines, solar panels, transmission lines, and electric vehicle batteries.

Such a move would continue our dependence on the PRC for our own “green” energy and transportation economy.

Foreign policy tariffs will, indeed, carry domestic costs, including protectionist tariffs’ higher prices for domestically produced goods and services.

But in what fantasy world does anyone think any war—and we are in one with the PRC, no matter the lack, so far, of a kinetic aspect—is entirely bloodless for either side? And, as with any war, what are the costs—fiscal or independence of action—of our losing the present war?

Some Progressive-Democrats…

…are beginning to rue the consequences of their Party’s no borders policies. But only a couple seem willing to say so out loud. The Chicago City Council’s Budget and Government Operations Committee voted 20-8 to move Progressive-Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson’s wish for $70 million for illegal alien support to the Council floor for debate and voting up. (Aside: is there political featherbedding here? 28 Council members on the Budget Committee out of 50 members on the whole Council.)

Progressive-Democrat 29th Ward Alderman Chris Taliaferro is one of only two of those eight willing to demur from this vocally.

We are not taking care of our own. We have all but forgotten the residents on the West Side and South Side.

The 9th Ward’s Progressive-Democrat Alderman Anthony Beale is the other one choosing to speak up.

Here we are begging for more money when we don’t have money for the people here. We don’t have money for after school programs. We don’t have money to help our kids get off the street. Yet, we would just blow money left and right. That’s a fundamental problem.

Wolf pups in sheep’s clothing, bleating in the wilderness.

“Tightrope”

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is walking a tightrope as he tries to deal with Israel. President faces pressure from both his left and right on Middle East conflict goes the subheadline.

Maybe pressure from the Left is there, maybe not.

There are two possibilities. One is that Biden is letting himself feel pressure from an extremely vocal but small Leftist faction that supports Hamas’ terrorists in their war against Israel, disguising their protests as support for Palestinians. Their constant chants of “from the river to the sea” demonstrates that disguise. If Biden really is that easily manipulated by the loudness of a small minority of the Left, actually feeling their “pressure,” then he’s too weak to be trusted with reelection to that office.

Alternatively, those extremely loud Hamas supporters aren’t a small Leftist faction, but instead comprise a large and growing portion of the Left and especially of the Progressive-Democratic Party. If that’s the case, that’s a Party as well as a Presidential candidate that can’t be trusted with reelection.

Biden’s Inflation

This is what Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s proudly touted Bidenomics has inflicted on us: continued high inflation.

Tacitly, Biden knows his policies are a failure, but he won’t admit it.

For now, officials said, Biden and his senior aides aren’t planning any major policy or rhetorical shifts.

Yet,

Behind the scenes, administration officials said there was no magic bullet to slow rising prices immediately, an issue that has dogged the president for years.

Rising prices—inflation—has been Biden’s problem since he took office; that’s the time frame of that drily put “for years.” From the Biden-caused sharp increase that damaged so many millions of pocketbooks of us ordinary Americans through that partial fall in inflation, of which Biden is so, and so misleadingly, proud, to the last few months of steadier 3+% inflation, we’re still facing price levels increasing at much higher rates than before Biden began his reign.

Some of Biden’s cost-cutting plans will take months to come to fruition and will do little in the short term to slow the rate of price increases.

[T]ake months to come to fruition: yeah—they’ve taken three years and counting.

Some stubbornly high prices, such as the cost of groceries, are mostly out of the Biden administration’s control.

Here, the news personalities who wrote the article at the link are badly mistaken. ­All of those high prices are fully under the administration’s control. Begin with Biden’s war of destruction on our energy industry. Energy underlies every aspect of our economy: fuel for our personal vehicles, energy to heat our homes in winter and cool them in summer, fuel for generating the electricity that’s needed in every aspect of our personal and business lives, shipping costs for all of our goods and services—including shipment of our groceries—and on and on. By seeking to destroy our coal-, oil-, and natural gas-based energy production, and continuing to passively block development and construction of nuclear power plants, Biden is raising the prices of energy, and that alone raises the price of every single item in our economy. Including those groceries.

Most economists don’t believe Biden can do much at this point to bring down inflation, absent major tax increases or spending cuts that could curtail consumer spending. Even those policies, which aren’t being seriously considered in Washington, would take time to work their way through the economy.

Most economists are right as far as they go. And they’re wrong. Tax increases or government spending cuts would take time to have effect. However, tax increases would reduce economic activity in general by taking even more money out of our private economy than our usurious current tax code does. That reduced economic activity will only lead to continued, if not increased, government spending in the form of welfare handouts, and those lead to greater deficits and debt, and to increased dependence on government.

Government spending cuts won’t, though, lead to less consumer spending. On the contrary, with less government competition for the same goods and services our private economy needs, inflation—and real price levels—would come down, making it easier for us consumers to consume, not harder.

But most economists don’t go far enough. There is much the Biden administration—Biden himself as President—can do that would have more immediate favorable effects on price levels. He can remove his Executive Orders that are interfering with the free flow of goods and services and that inhibit coal, oil, and natural gas production. He can instruct his Departments and Agencies to withdraw their rules that interfere with that free flow and that inhibit energy production.

But he won’t.

A Governor Betrays our Children

Kansas’ Progressive-Democrat Governor Laura Kelly has vetoed a bill that would have banned gender surgeries and hormone treatments for minors. Her rationalization:

targets a small group of Kansans by placing government mandates on them and dictating to parents how to best raise and care for their children. I do not believe that is a conservative value, and it’s certainly not a Kansas value.

A small group: leave aside the Left’s mantra (apparently only when convenient) of “if it saves just one life….” Protecting children from mutilation that’s far too often crippling as well isn’t a conservative value?

That’s how far Left the Progressive-Democratic Party, epitomized by Kelly, has gone.