Protectionism and Free Trade

Trump sells tariffs as “freedom,” but they’re just another tax punishing consumers, fueling chaos, and expanding state power.

The Trump administration is trying to develop programs to domestically produce “critical” minerals that might be unavailable during trade disruptions. Of course, it is turning into yet another central planning fiasco.

Ryan McMaken traces the rise and squeeze of America’s small business economy, showing how tariffs, industrial policy, the Fed, and “too big to fail” bailouts systematically tilt the field toward big corporations and away from independent entrepreneurs and the middle class.

This SCOTUS ruling is a refreshing rebuttal limiting executive branch power to implement President Trump’s troublesome tariffs by executive order through IEEPA.

Politicians claim that trade deficits are due to the lack of trade barriers. However, as Ludwig von Mises explained, one cannot separate trade and sound money, especially when the current edition of the US dollar is declining in value relative to what it can buy.

Do not be surprised if the audience’s applause to Rubio's speech turns out to be short lived. He offered nothing new and much that would result in less security for its members.

Ultimately, eliminating tariffs is a submission to a fundamental truth: the wealth of a nation does not come from stifling global trade.

Jim Beam has been making whiskey for a long time, through thick and thin. But the Trump tariffs have shut down the venerable distillery.

One of the justification that the White House gives for its onerous tariffs is that they will stop the “offshoring” of American jobs and lead to greater job growth here. That scenario has not and will not ever come to fruition.

For more than 60 years, the US government has enforced a trade embargo against Cuba, ostensibly to force the communist government into collapse. The only thing that has collapsed, however, is the logic in the US policy.