It is actually holistic intuitive

To analyze society and the economy, and especially if the goal is to force peaceful individuals, a Insight into basic economy Should be a must. Economy is needed to clearly think about the social consequences of individual actions and government interventions. An example A counter was just given by President Donald Trump; the Wall Street Journal Reports (“Trump says that he ‘doesn’t care’ if car prices rise“March 30, 2025):

“I don’t care, because if prices for foreign cars rise, they will buy American cars,” Trump said. “I hope they increase their prices, because if they do, people will buy cars made in America. We have enough.”

The president does not seem to understand that a rate also leads to an equal rise in the prices of competing goods produced in their own country – American cars in this case. This is precisely the reason why domestic producers of Tarifed goods are happy: higher prices for their own products will be protected against foreign competitors. A rate “protects” Only if This allows domestic producers to get higher prices. (For more information on this topic, see two of my recent messages, “The basic error about international trade” and “aluminum, economy and freedom.”)

That’s why nobody should have been surprised when Trump Apparently the domestic car producers warned not to rise their prices under punishment of punishment. Later he denied having made this threat (see the March 30 Wsj report):

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Trump had warned managers that the White House would look unfavorably on such a movement, so that some of them rattled and were afraid that they would get the punishment if they would raise prices.

“I never said that,” Trump told NBC.

Does he have or not? Perhaps he entertains “fundamental holistic” beliefs to use the conditions of his trade consultant Peter Navarro as reported by the Wsj:

“If you actually look at this holistically, as they say, consumers and Americans will be better off, including all the jobs they get,” Navarro said.

“They” are certainly not serious economists who never speak in those terms. However, it must be that only “basic holistic” intuitions can justify the type of trade war that Navarro has pushed on Trump, albeit a fruitful ground.

The moment he used the economic theory to reason about such matters, Navarro was closer to reality. In his book from 1984, The policy game: how special interests and ideologists steal America (John Wiley & Sons), he attacked special interests and specifically explained how rates also increase the prices of competing property produced in their own country:

In the absence of trade barriers, goods ranging from cars and clothing to shoes and televisions are offered to consumers at lower prices (or higher quality) than when American producers produce them. However, when a device such as a rate is imposed, the importer must pay the US government a duty to sell its product. This actually increases the costs of the importer and forces the importer to increase his price by all or part of the duty. American producers can then increase their prices, which have so far been lowered by import competition. [pp. 75-76, my emphasis]

Navarro offers other arguments that are not very original, but at least in line with a few centuries of economic analysis, for example:

However, as the economic analysis has indicated, the choice is not between preserving Smokestack Industries or trusting high -tech -wonderlands. It is rather between a protected but inefficient and falling industrial basis versus a more innovative industrial sector that, under the import competition, can and invests in rapid technological developments that promise a prosperous merger of the two worlds. [p. 89]

The clear danger of this [protectionist] Trend is a total worldwide trade war. … and as history has taught painfully, as soon as protectionist wars begin, the likely result is a deadly and well -being of the entire night, downward spiral throughout the world economy.
If the world is in fact sucked into this spiral, enormous profit will be sacrificed. Although such a sacrifice can save some jobs in the sheltered domestic industry, it will destroy so much or more in other home industries, in particular those which are highly dependent on export trade. At the same time, consumers pay ten billions of dollars more at higher prices for a much more limited selection of goods. [pp. 55-56]

Of course one cannot blame someone for changing his opinion and explained the reasons why he now thinks he was wrong. But fundamental holistic intuitions of the type of tantric-snew age cannot serve as a rational explanation. Neither can the CO idiot offer sufficient justification of all kinds of politicians (see my article “The conversion of Peter Navarro” RegulationAutumn 2018).

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