by jpitney | Jul 31, 2025 | Budget, Economic Policy, Trade
Jessica Riedl at WP: [E]conomists generally agree that trade wars harm long-term economic growth by limiting consumer options, raising costs, reducing investment capital and killing jobs in industries that suffer from foreign retaliation. This slowdown in the growth...
by jpitney | Jul 22, 2025 | Canada, Economic Policy, Reagan, Trade
Robert Zoellick at WSJ: After the Trump-Biden era fades into history, which party will offer an alternative to costly, backward-looking industrial policies? While Vice President JD Vance lectures Europeans on democracy and philosophizes about state-led capitalism,...
by jpitney | Jul 21, 2025 | Economic Policy, Trade
Tariffs aren’t instant inflation. Goods take a month at sea, another in customs, and more time in storage. Then you work through the storerooms that businesses filled ahead of time. Only then do new costs hit shelves. So yes, tariffs raise prices—just not right away....
by jpitney | Jul 6, 2025 | Housing, Trade
Alex Ford and Jiachuan Wu at NBC: An NBC News analysis of building materials and import data found that the total cost of building a mid-range single-family home could rise by more than $4,000 — an estimate that industry experts who reviewed the analysis called...
by jpitney | Jun 26, 2025 | Economic Policy, Trade
Phil Gramm and Donald Boudreaux at WSJ: Because steel and aluminum are crucial in manufacturing, anything close to a 50% tariff will drive up the cost of U.S. manufactured products dramatically. That will harm consumers, make U.S. manufactured products far less...
by jpitney | Jun 24, 2025 | Economic Policy, Trade
Fed Chair Jerome Powell: Policy changes continue to evolve, and their effects on the economy remain uncertain. The effects of tariffs will depend, among other things, on their ultimate level. Expectations of that level, and thus of the related economic effects,...