TrumpтАЩs Tariff Aggression by Prabhat Patnaik (2025) in People's Democracy
It is important for an intellectual position not only to be right but to be right for the right reasons; and the near-universal condemnation of Donald TrumpтАЩs aggressive imposition of tariffs, though right, is right for the wrong reasons. A pervasive presumption underlying such condemnation has been that unrestricted trade is a good thing for all concerned; and that Trump, in deviating from this maxim, is being both nasty and stupid. Much of the critique of TrumpтАЩs strategy in short is based on an acceptance of the free trade argument that has been handed down from the days of David Ricardo. This argument however is totally wrong. It is based on an acceptance of SayтАЩs Law that states that a capitalist economy can never have a demand constraint, which is palpably absurd. Once we move away from this Law attributed to the тАЬtrite M. SayтАЭ, as Marx had described him, then it follows that trade policy, that is, whether free trade is pursued or tariffs are imposed, is devised for obtaining a larger market for the producers of one country at the expense of others. Free trade in other words does not necessarily benefit all; and faulting Trump for moving away from free trade amounts to faulting him for the wrong reasons.
