News India Times

www.newsindiatimes.com – that’s all you need to know Opinion News India Times (April 12, 2025 - April 18, 2025) April 18, 2025 6 Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the authors and Parikh Worldwide Media does not officially endorse, and is not responsible or liable for them. The Terrible Arguments Coming From Trump’s Tariff Defenders M arkets have swooned and spiked and swooned again as President Donald Trump has alternately imposed and then paused large new tariffs. What has stayed consistent through every announcement is the dismal quality of the public argu- ments for these spasms of protectionism. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has run through many of the worst ones. “A lot of our trading partners, including some of our allies, have not been good partners,” he told Tucker Carlson. “If tariffs are so bad, why do they have them?” Govern- ments throughout history have pursued policies that impoverish their people. Many countries, including our own, have recently had high inflation. If it’s so bad, why has it been so widespread? But Bessent’s point is even weaker than that. Even before this year’s tariffs, many countries - including Canada, the United Kingdom and Vietnam - had lower trade barriers than the U.S. Trump has put tar- iffs on all of them anyway. No developed country has tariffs as high as the ones we now have, even under the latest plan an- nounced onWednesday. If Trump restarts the paused tariffs, that gap will get bigger. In the same interview, Bessent also dismissed concerns that Trump’s tariffs have pummeled stocks on the ground that “the top 10 percent of Americans own 88 percent of equities.” It’s certainly true that wealthy people have most of the wealth. Gallup reports, however, that 65 percent of people in its middle-income category - making $40,000 to $100,000 - own stocks, either directly or through their retirement plans. It’s probably not much comfort to them to hear that billionaires are losing more money to the tariffs than they are. The commentator Batya Ungar-Sargon suggested on Fox Business thatWall Street was, in “utterly despicable” fashion, trying to force Trump to abandon “the Ameri- can worker” - an analysis that theWhite House amplified on social media. On this theory, investors around the world acted, in concert, to deplete their own wealth by trillions of dollars in order to achieve a shared political objective. An alternative theory is that the tariffs reduced investors’ expectations of future corporate profits and prices moved accordingly. I’ll trust readers to judge which explanation has more plausibility. Fox News tried out several other de- fenses of the tariffs. It published an article theorizing that Trump’s tariffs are a “cal- culated” ploy to create global economic uncertainty that would cause investors worldwide to buy U.S. assets and conse- quently lower our interest rates. At least one Republican congressman swallowed this story, but interest rates have refused to cooperate - so much so that Trump cited the “queasy” bond market in sus- pending some of his tariffs. If interest rates decline as a result of the tariffs, though, it still might not be good news, since it could be a side effect of lower economic growth. On air, Fox Business anchor David Asman played on nostalgia. The tariffs, he said, are an attempt to bring back a world where a man could provide for his family while his wife stayed home, the way his father could in the 1950s. That’s still possible, though, if the family wants a 1950s standard of living. But dual-income households are generally going to make more than single-income households, and there is no reason to expect tariffs to bring themmuch closer to parity. Tariffs cannot even be counted on to increase manufacturing jobs. Trump’s first-term tariffs appear to have reduced them both because they increased the cost of manufacturing inputs and because they led to retaliatory tariffs against us. Trump adviser Peter Navarro even al- luded to this problem when he accused Elon Musk, whose company Tesla already produces cars and batteries in the U.S., of opposing tariffs to head off a spike in sup- ply chain costs. Some Republicans, perhaps aware that defending the substance of Trump’s trade policy exceeds their rhetorical gifts, have opted instead to base their argument on Trump the man. “You have to trust the president’s instincts on the economy,” says House Speaker Mike Johnson (Loui- siana), because his leadership yielded “the greatest economy in the history of the world” during the pre-covid years of his first term. That assessment overstates how much influence presidents usually have over the economy: Those early Trump years largely continued the economic trends of the late Obama years. More important, the average tariff rate in Trump’s first term was much lower than it is now. If his first-term policies were really so helpful, maybe we should get them back. Johnson and his congressional colleagues could even insist on it, through legislation. Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, opted to pretend that critics of the tariffs aren’t patriots. “America is not an economic zone,” he said on X. “It’s not a strip mall with an airport attached. It’s a nation. It’s a people. It’s our home. For too long, our leaders have been selling our country off for parts.” America is a home. It would be a hap- pier home if we didn’t slap taxes on Ameri- cans for buying coffee, or force American companies that rely on imported steel to shrink. We now have a 90-day pause on some of the tariffs. If the administration won’t use the time to find better policies, let its apologists at least use it to find better talk- ing points. Ramesh Pon- nuru, a contribut- ing columnist for the Washington Post, is the editor of National Review and a fellow at the American Enter- prise Institute. -Special to TheWashington Post By Ramesh Ponnuru PHOTO:Demetrius Freeman/TheWashington Post Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speak, moments after President Donald Trump announced he is pausing tariffs for 90 days, outside the White House on Wednesday. URGENT ADVISORY FROM INDIAN CONSULATE IN NEW YORK ON SCAMMERS I ndia’s Consul General in NewYork, Binaya Srikanta Pradhan issued an important ad- visory April 11, 2025, regarding fraudulent and scam calls being made in the name of the Indian Embassy and Consulates. These fake callers are attempting to gather personal and sensitive information. “I want to draw your attention to a serious issue of scam calls being made in the name of Consulate or Embassy. Despite repeated advisories, these scam calls continue. Let me reiterate, the Consulate or Embassy never issues such calls asking for personal information, passport details, or money. Please do not share any personal details or any money. Also beware of unscrupulous agents charging exhorbitant fees. If you face such issues, contact us on social me- dia or write to us at cons.newyork@mea.gov.in. Stay Alert. Stay Safe. Thank you.” Consul General Binaya S. Pradhan PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT PHOTO:TheWashington Post India’s Consul General in New York Binaya S. Pradhan issues warning on scam calls seeking personal information. PHOTO:Screengrab fromvideo on X @IndiainNewYork