President Donald Trump on Friday called for China to open up its markets to the United States and floated the possibility of cutting the current tariffs on China nearly in half.
Trump made the comments just one day after telling reporters that he expected tariffs on China to be lowered soon. This weekend, American and Chinese officials are set to meet in Switzerland to discuss trade and other economic matters.
&#8220;CHINA SHOULD OPEN UP ITS MARKET TO USA — WOULD BE SO GOOD FOR THEM!!! CLOSED MARKETS DON’T WORK ANYMORE!!!&#8221; Trump posted on his Truth Social social media platform early Friday morning.
A few minutes later, he posted, &#8220;80% Tariff on China seems right! Up to Scott B,&#8221; presumably referring to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Tariffs on China have been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-lays-out-exact-tariff-rate-on-china-going-forward" target="_blank" rel="noopener">set at 145%</a> since last month after the communist country moved to retaliate against Trump&#8217;s tariffs. At the same time, China imposed a 125% levy on American goods. During an event in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/05/08/business/us-weighs-plan-to-slash-china-tariffs-to-as-low-as-50-as-soon-as-next-week-sources/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that tariffs on China would not increase anymore and could &#8220;only go down.&#8221;
&#8220;It’s at 145 so we know it’s coming down,” Trump said. “I think we’re going to have a very good relationship.”
Treasury Secretary Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breakthrough-trump-officials-set-date-for-direct-trade-talks-with-china" target="_blank" rel="noopener">are poised</a> to meet with Chinese officials on Saturday and Sunday in Geneva to attempt to work out a trade deal.
“At President Trump’s direction, I am negotiating with countries to rebalance our trade relations to achieve reciprocity, open new markets, and protect America’s economic and national security,” Greer <a href="https://ustr.gov/about/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2025/may/ambassador-jamieson-greer-travel-switzerland" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. “I look forward to having productive meetings with some of my counterparts as well as visiting with my team in Geneva who all work diligently to advance U.S. interests on a range of multilateral issues.”
Bessent has said that the current economic situation with China is &#8220;unsustainable&#8221; and that the United States wants &#8220;fair trade&#8221; and not to completely decouple from China.
On Thursday, Trump announced his first big trade agreement. Trump said the deal with the United Kingdom would allow the United States to gain increased market access in the U.K. for billions of dollars worth of American exports. The 10% baseline tariff on British goods remains in place with exceptions for exports of Rolls-Royce engines and airplane parts.

Trump Hails The Election Of First US Pope As A ‘Great Honor’

Trump Calls For China To Open Its Markets, Floats Major Tariff Reduction

China

Communist China

Donald Trump

Economics

Economy

Executive

Politics

Scott Bessent

Tariffs

Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) acknowledged on Wednesday that one aspect of the tariff wars had truly surprised him: how many countries the Trump administration said had come to the negotiating table, and how quickly they had done so.
Kennedy made the observation when he joined hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Morning Joe,&#8221; admitting that he &#8220;frankly never saw that coming.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Some of the smartest minds across the world are betting on a recession.
SEN KENNEDY: With tariffs, an eye for an eye just leaves both people blind&#8230;But then&#8230;an extraordinary thing happened! We have 195 countries in the world. Probably 40% have come forward —… <a href="https://t.co/30WYxnYuQ1">pic.twitter.com/30WYxnYuQ1</a>
&mdash; Townhall.com (@townhallcom) <a href="https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1909960194546692390?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Scarborough set the oppositional narrative with regard to tariffs, saying, &#8220;Some of the smartest minds across the world are betting on a recession. What are you saying to your business leaders when they&#8217;re calling you about where this goes next?&#8221;
&#8220;Well, this is what I&#8217;m telling them,&#8221; Kennedy replied. &#8220;With tariffs, an eye for an eye just leaves both people blind. When a government imposes a tariff, it&#8217;s putting its thumb on the scale. It interferes with people&#8217;s freedom to exchange goods and services.&#8221;
&#8220;Some countries — China, the best example — have used trade barriers as a weapon to hurt the American economy,&#8221; Kennedy continued. &#8220;You said it — God created the world, everything else is made in China. President Trump decided to try to change this, and he, as we know, has imposed dramatically higher American tariffs on these countries.&#8221;
And that, Kennedy explained, was where the pendulum started to swing back: &#8220;But then, at least for me, an extraordinary thing happened. We have 195 countries in the world. Probably 40% have come forward — and instead of bowing up and fighting, they&#8217;ve said, &#8216;We want to lower our tariffs! Will you lower yours?'&#8221;
&#8220;I frankly never saw that coming,&#8221; Kennedy said, noting that he could not speak for what the president might do next, but adding, &#8220;I think it is a wonderful opportunity &#8230; I would pounce on this opportunity like a ninja. And I would use this as an opportunity to reduce or in some cases — Taiwan, Vietnam, European Union — go to zero reciprocal tariffs and then we can have free trade, let the best product at the best price win.&#8221;
Kennedy once again couched his comments by saying he did not know the White House&#8217;s plan and could only speak to what he would do in the current situation.

Sen. Cotton Holds Capitol Hill Press Conference To Discuss Ongoing College Campus Protests

GOP Sen. Reveals What Surprised Him About Tariff Battle: ‘I Frankly Never Saw That Coming’

GOP Sen. Reveals What Surprised Him About Tariff Battle: 'I Frankly Never Saw That Coming'

Congress

John Kennedy

Morning Joe

MSNBC

Trade War

It appears many traders are betting that things are going to continue to be really, really chaotic in the world of tariffs. The biggest problem, however, is that the Trump administration has not made it clear what exactly they want to accomplish with these tariffs.
This has been my point. There are times when tariffs can be useful. In fact, of the three times tariffs could theoretically be useful, two could actually be useful.
First: Tariffs are important to protect vital industries such as defense industries. You need to produce those goods here at home instead of producing them elsewhere. Thus, you actually protect and give what are effectively artificial subsidies to American defense industries. That is totally understandable.
Second: Using tariffs to leverage other countries, either because those countries are our enemies and we want to do harm to them, or because we wish to get other countries to lower their own tariffs. In the end, the goal is a lower-tariff regime.
But there&#8217;s the third possibility, one that is retailed by President Trump and many other members of his administration. Of all of the various rationales given for the tariffs, this is the most problematic and currently roiling the markets.
Third: Tariffs are good and trade wars are good and easy to win. Tariffs will make us rich; ignoring the fact that they are a tax on American consumers.
The idea that tariffs are inherently good and make the American economy strong is wrongheaded. It is untrue. The idea that these tariffs will result in mass reshoring of manufacturing is also untrue.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2174-member-exclusive?row=0&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
And this is why Bill Ackman, investor extraordinaire and ally to President Trump, put out <a href="https://x.com/BillAckman/status/1908992002366292286">a statement</a> over the weekend. He said: 
<blockquote>The country is 100% behind the president on fixing a global system of tariffs that has disadvantaged the country. But, business is a confidence game and confidence depends on trust. President @realDonaldTrump has elevated the tariff issue to the most important geopolitical issue in the world, and he has gotten everyone’s attention. So far, so good. And yes, other nations have taken advantage of the U.S. by protecting their home industries at the expense of millions of our jobs and economic growth in our country. But, by placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital. </blockquote>
Here&#8217;s what Ackman is basically saying to Trump: Take a time-out, figure out what it is that you want to do here.
Ackman continued: 
<blockquote>The president has an opportunity to call a 90-day time out, negotiate and resolve unfair asymmetric tariff deals, and induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country. If, on the other hand, on April 9th we launch economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate.
What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term, economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war? I don’t know of one who will do so.
When markets crash, new investment stops, consumers stop spending money, and businesses have no choice but to curtail investment and fire workers. And it is not just the big companies that will suffer. Small and medium size businesses and entrepreneurs will experience much greater pain. Almost no business can pass through an overnight massive increase in costs to their customers. And that’s true even if they have no debt, and, unfortunately, there is a massive amount of leverage in the system.
Business is a confidence game. The president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe. The consequences for our country and the millions of our citizens who have supported the president — in particular low-income consumers who are already under a huge amount of economic stress — are going to be severely negative. This is not what we voted for.
The President has an opportunity on Monday to call a time out and have the time to execute on fixing an unfair tariff system. Alternatively, we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down. May cooler heads prevail.</blockquote>
The problem here is a vast combination of radical uncertainty and overtly bad policy being spouted by members of the administration. There is no one in the administration who&#8217;s making the overtly good case. There are many people in the administration, however, who are making bad to strained cases right now.
Over the weekend, Trump put out <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114285375813275308">a statement</a> on Truth Social writing:
<blockquote>THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!</blockquote>
But the words “hang tough” scare the living daylights out of the entire market because “hang tough” sets up a lengthy, significant period of tariffs. If that is to happen, we&#8217;re getting all the consequences. Basically, it melts down the markets. If you&#8217;re talking about these tariff rates on countries maintained as they currently stand, if they are implemented just a few days from now, you are talking about an economic catastrophe.
And even if on the other end there is a brand new world, we still have not heard what exactly that brand new world looks like. Is that a brand new world where we are reshoring manual labor from Vietnam to make T-shirts? This is the confusion.
No one knows what is actually going on. People like Bill Ackman are hopeful that this is a sort of 4D chess game in order to leverage other countries to open up their tariffs. If that&#8217;s the case, it sounds great. We can get there if the final policy is good.
In the meantime, we can all hope and pray that’s what this chess game is.

Markets Open Monday Morning After Plummeting Prior Week On Tariff News

Market Sell-Off Continues: What’s Next?

Ben Shapiro

Bill Ackman

Dow Jones

Opinion

President Trump

Stock Market

Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) defended President Donald Trump&#8217;s tariffs during a Monday morning appearance on Fox News, saying that cattle ranchers in his state were grateful for the president&#8217;s efforts to balance trade by pushing back against the barriers put in place by other nations.
Barrasso told the hosts of Fox&#8217;s &#8220;America&#8217;s Newsroom&#8221; that because of trade barriers imposed by nations like Australia, beef producers were forced into an uneven — and unfair — trade market because they had to compete for domestic sales with countries that wouldn&#8217;t even allow their product to be sold abroad.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/SenJohnBarrasso?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenJohnBarrasso</a>: &quot;Congress has given the President more and more authority on tariffs&#8230; The cattle producers are saying it is about time&#8230; Australia has sold $29 billion worth of beef in the United States, and we haven&#39;t been able to sell one hamburger in Australia because of… <a href="https://t.co/Dn0SgQ6iqr">pic.twitter.com/Dn0SgQ6iqr</a>
&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1909241584287138129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Congress has given the President more and more authority on tariffs,&#8221; Barrasso explained. &#8220;Specifically, national security for unfair trade practices, President Trump is fully within his authority, and I appreciate what the president is doing on tariffs, specifically in our home state of Wyoming.&#8221;
&#8220;In terms of beef, the cattle producers, they are saying it is about time,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;One of the countries that you just showed on that slide before I came on, Australia — Australia has sold $29 billion worth of beef in the United States, and we haven&#8217;t been able to sell one hamburger in Australia because of barriers.&#8221;
&#8220;They showed Thailand, 30% tariffs on beef coming from the United States,&#8221; Barrasso said. &#8220;Vietnam, 50%. You look at these numbers, and the ranchers of Wyoming are saying, &#8216;Thank you, Mr. President, it is about time.'&#8221;
The widespread tariffs, introduced last Wednesday during a White House event dubbed &#8220;Liberation Day,&#8221; have sparked <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/spin-cycle-legacy-media-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-tariffs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fierce debate</a> both on Capitol Hill and across media outlets as the resulting uncertainty caused the stock market to take a dramatic tumble.
Still, Trump has defended the move and urged those concerned about the market to &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hang-tough-trump-calls-on-americans-to-ride-out-tariff-storm-predicts-historic-investments" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hang tough</a>&#8221; as the tariffs are used as leverage to bring other nations to the table to negotiate fairer trade arrangements for the United States.

Senate Holds Confirmation Hearing For Secretary Of State Nominee Marco Rubio

Wyoming Senator Defends Trump’s Tariffs: ‘We Haven’t Been Able To Sell One Hamburger In Australia’

Wyoming Senator Defends Trump's Tariffs: 'We Haven't Been Able To Sell One Hamburger In Australia'

Australia

Free Trade

John Barrasso

The monthly jobs report released Friday showed that 228,000 jobs were added to the economy in March, strongly outpacing the growth predicted by analysts. 
The Bureau of Labor Statistics <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> found that transportation and warehousing, healthcare, social assistance, and retail were the largest growth areas. The employment rate remained relatively steady from February, ticking up to 4.2% from 4.1%. 
March job growth rose significantly above the 140,000 increase forecasted by the Dow Jones. The rise was also much larger than the 158,000 average 12-month increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
The report showed that 54,000 jobs were added in healthcare, 24,000 in social assistance, 23,000 in transportation and warehousing, and 24,000 in retail. The jump in retail jobs was aided by more than 10,000 grocery workers <a href="https://apnews.com/article/king-soopers-grocery-strike-ends-denver-e3195f8b00754ec75699ae43d83aeac6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ending</a> a strike in February. 
The previous 12-month average for transportation and warehousing was a monthly gain of 12,000. 
One sector that saw a notable decline was federal government jobs, which fell by 4,000. That number doesn’t include workers who are on paid leave or getting severance pay, the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted. In February, there was an 11,000 decline in government jobs. Those cuts came after the Trump administration moved to fire thousands of workers through its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project. 
The news was celebrated by President Donald Trump, who said the numbers showed that his economic policies were working. 
“GREAT JOB NUMBERS, FAR BETTER THAN EXPECTED. IT’S ALREADY WORKING. HANG TOUGH, WE CAN’T LOSE!!!” President Donald Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114279844695644343" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on Truth Social. 
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the numbers showed that the “Golden Age of America is on its way!”
“The economy is starting to roar with a strong 228,000 jobs added in the month of March — well ahead of the market&#8217;s expectation,” said Leavitt. “There was also a sharp increase in transportation, construction, and warehousing employment. The President&#8217;s push to onshore jobs here in the United States is working.&#8221; 
The strong jobs report comes amid economic uncertainty after Trump imposed widespread tariffs on countries across the globe, leading to a tumbling stock market. Trump has said that his economic policies will increase domestic production and entice foreign investment in American industry.

US-POLITICS-TARIFF-TRADE-DIPLOMACY

‘We Can’t Lose’: March Job Growth Vastly Outpaces Expectations

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Jobs

Trump Administration

On Wednesday, President Trump declared that it was “Liberation Day.” He said this is our economic Declaration of Independence now.
The markets were rocked after the announcement and there’s a reason why, which I will explain.
The president seems to believe that international trade is a zero-sum game. His giant tariff policy is predicated on a few false notions about the American economy. One is that the American economy has been a giant failure for the last 40 years. That is simply not true. This is a myth that is propagated by both parties.
I know, it&#8217;s a fun myth. It&#8217;s something people like to believe, that yesterday was economically better than today.
But then you look at all the stuff around you, the phone in your pocket, the computer, the fact that you can literally order any product at any time from anywhere on earth and it arrives at your doorstep in two days at a price you can afford, and you think to yourself: Would I rather live in 1980 when the only person with a cell phone was Gordon Gekko on a beach holding a shoe box to his head, when central air conditioning was kind of a rarity? When the cars, if you were lucky, had electric windows? Was that better? Were things better simply on an economic level?
Forget about everything else. You can make a case about the descent on the spiritual level. You can make a case about the dissolution of the family. I agree with many of those cases. But we&#8217;re not talking about the life of the spirit within. We&#8217;re talking about economics, which is the distribution of goods and services.
America has done well for decades and has not stopped. A myth that all politicians like to tell is that America has not done well, that America has been hollowed out by deindustrialization and we are not actually manufacturing anymore in this country.
That is not true. In 1997, the United States was producing $1.4 trillion in real manufacturing value added. In 2025, we are producing $2.4 trillion. That is an arithmetic increase.
So, if we are manufacturing more, why aren&#8217;t there more manufacturing jobs? The answer is technology. We manufacture more because we have better robots and they are doing much of the work that people seem to have a very warm and fuzzy feeling about, but then never want to do themselves.
I notice a lot of people say, “Why can&#8217;t I have a factory job just like in 1955 at Ford? Working in a non-air conditioned factory riveting all day?” It’s unlikely that’s your ideal job.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2172-member-exclusive?row=2&amp;elementPosition=4&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
We&#8217;ve been told the lie that the American middle class has been hollowed out by international trade.
But here is what actually happened to the American middle-class over the course of the last several decades. The American middle-class stayed approximately the same or shrank a little bit. Why did it shrink? Not because people became lower middle-class or poor, but because a huge number of Americans went into the upper middle-class. The number one change in the status of American families in terms of income from just before 1980 to about 2015 was a 16% increase in the upper middle-class.
In other words, people got richer. And by the way, everyone got richer, including the poor, because the stuff you can get as a poor person in America in 2025 is way better than the stuff you could get as a poor person in America in 1980. That&#8217;s just a reality.
How about wages? We keep hearing that wages are stagnant and have been stagnant since 1979. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, however, there was a steep increase in wages between 1980 and 2025. 
I know this cuts against the conventional political wisdom, which says that the American economy sucks and it&#8217;s because everybody is cheating us. 
One of the things President Trump is predicating his tariff war upon is the idea that trade deficits are inherently bad. A trade deficit is where, in terms of value, we import more stuff than we export. As I have pointed out before, you have a trade deficit with literally every business you do business with unless they&#8217;re buying your product.
So, for example, I have a trade deficit with my local grocery store, a huge trade deficit. They have received pretty much nothing from me. But I have bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of groceries over the years from my local grocery. They’re not taking advantage of me; I&#8217;m getting value for my dollar in the form of food and supplies.
As the great economist Thomas Sowell points out, “If the goods and services available to the American people are greater as a result of international trade, then Americans are wealthier, not poorer, regardless of whether there is a deficit or a surplus in the international balance of trade.”
In fact, I can name a period in American history where there was a fairly large surplus in America&#8217;s balance of trade: the entire Great Depression.
As it turns out, trade deficits have pretty much nothing to do with the health of an economy. They don&#8217;t tell you very much.
19th century French economist Frédéric Bastiat once wrote on this topic, essentially saying, “Look, if you&#8217;re so worried about trade imbalances, then actually what you should do is you should sink ships filled with your own exports before they ever get to the other side.” So if we&#8217;re exporting oranges to Europe and they&#8217;re going to send us apples in return, the best way to ensure that no trade imbalance takes place is we should send our oranges out of the country and sink the ship before it ever gets to Europe so they can&#8217;t send us apples back. Then we’ll have a large export on our ledger and no imports. Great idea. The economy will be stronger.
So, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of trade deficits. This is not about balance of payments, which is a different thing. Balance of payments is about the flow of gold. We&#8217;re no longer in a gold standard, but it&#8217;s about currencies.
Trade deficits are a different thing.
In reality, I think the Trump administration is likely to try and leverage headlines out of various foreign nations suggesting they&#8217;re going to invest in America to the tune of some billions of dollars before lowering the tariff rates again.
I do have faith that President Trump actually responds to headlines and to the news. He lives in the world of reality and won’t simply ignore that the markets hate all of this.
Yesterday, The White House quietly put out a fact sheet that read:
<blockquote>These tariffs will remain in effect until such a time as President Trump determines that the threat posed by the trade deficit and underlying nonreciprocal treatment is satisfied, resolved, or mitigated. Today’s IEEPA Order also contains modification authority, allowing President Trump to increase the tariff if trading partners retaliate or decrease the tariffs if trading partners take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements and align with the United States on economic and national security matters.</blockquote>
Now, other countries could say they will invest in the American economy and President Trump gets a huge win. That could happen. I&#8217;m hoping that&#8217;s what Trump is planning on doing.
Is President Trump going to send out surrogates, like the Treasury Secretary, to walk some of this back and to try to point out where an off-ramp is? Or is he just going to keep doubling down on the theory that it&#8217;s short-term pain for long-term gain? If so, he&#8217;s going to have to explain how short-term the pain is and what exactly the long-term gain is, because that has not even been spelled out at this point. Is the idea that other countries are going to reshore to the United States to take advantage of our markets in some way, but we will leave tariffs on stuff that they export to us? They could also form trade blocs themselves and then go make time with the Chinese.
There are real-world implications for this sort of stuff. Trade wars are not good and not easy to win, particularly if you don&#8217;t actually have a plan. You actually have to have a plan.
So, I want somebody to make the case as to why this is actually excellent policy, why this is going to be salutary for the United States, why this is going to benefit the people of the United States en masse. And if you&#8217;re going to call for sacrifice from the American people, the question is, what is the thing on the other side of that sacrifice that is better and good?
What I&#8217;ve heard so far is a lot of casting of various aspersions at foreign countries for engaging in trade with us, regardless of whether they are good or bad, because we&#8217;re treating Canada the same way we&#8217;re treating China.
This is why I think the markets are confused. Investors are confused. Confusion and fear are going to breed sell-off. Less investment, less job growth.
It&#8217;s all avoidable. We need to hear an actual narrative, not a bunch of talking points that are generated from a cork board filled with statistics made up by some sort of AI.

President Trump Holds “Make America Wealthy Again Event” In White House Rose Garden

Liberation Day. What’s The Plan?

European Union

Foreign Policy

Money

When Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he inherited the Trump economy. An economy on the path to recovery from the COVID pandemic – a country experiencing rapid job growth, a strong stock market, and a resurgence in consumer spending.
Instead of fostering this economic recovery with pro-growth policies, or simply sitting back and doing nothing, the Biden administration implemented an economic agenda of excessive government spending, overregulation, and a war on oil, all of which drove inflation and stalled the then robust economy.
Sadly, because of the failed economic policies of the Biden administration, the U.S. economy, and the American people, are facing economic headwinds which may well reach deep into 2025. Fortunately, the Trump administration is pursuing a handful of policies which will return the American economy to strength and greatness, and the American worker to greatness.
The first major economic <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/11/10/trump-policy-stimulus-inflation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">misstep</a> of the Biden administration was the passage of the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) in 2021, which did little except to throw gasoline onto an already hot economy. 
At a time when the economy was on the mend and inflation under control, Biden unnecessarily printed money and poured it into the economy, flooding it with cash. As a result, <a href="https://internationalbanker.com/finance/bidens-economic-scorecard-overshadowed-by-the-worst-us-inflation-rate-in-40-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inflation</a> surged to 9.1% in 2022, a rate not seen since 1981, squeezing household budgets and eroding Trump-era wage gains.
To combat this inflation, the Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest <a href="https://budget.house.gov/press-release/interest-costs-skyrocket-by-152-percent-under-president-biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rates</a>, bringing them from near zero in 2022 to over 5% in late 2023, an increase of more than 150%.
<a href="https://www.heritage.org/housing/commentary/biden-killing-the-american-dream-homeownership" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mortgages</a> skyrocketed, with the average 30-year rate surpassing 7%, making home ownership all but impossible for first-time homebuyers, and forcing many who wanted to sell their homes to remain in place, creating a scarcity of housing inventory, driving up prices.
During this time, Biden expanded welfare programs, including extending <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/14/biden-unemployment-plan-400-boost-extra-benefits-for-six-months.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unemployment</a> benefits, and illegally forgave student <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-cancels-student-loan-another-150000-borrowers-rcna187453" target="_blank" rel="noopener">loan</a> debts. This discouraged workforce participation, exacerbating labor shortages.
As inflation continued, real wages <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/33790/nominal-and-real-wage-growth-in-the-united-states/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stagnated</a>, or declined, leaving Americans struggling to pay for essentials such as food, gas, and housing. <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/blog/sf-fed-blog/2024/05/03/pandemic-savings-are-gone-whats-next-for-us-consumers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Savings</a> eroded, credit card <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/credit-card-debt-total-us-2024/">debt</a> reached record levels, and people began defaulting on <a href="https://www.heritage.org/housing/commentary/biden-killing-the-american-dream-homeownership" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mortgages</a> and <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/americans-falling-behind-car-payments" target="_blank" rel="noopener">car</a> payments.
Biden’s war on <a href="https://www.gop.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=766" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fossil fuels</a> and his support of the Green New Deal Mafia contributed to higher energy costs and supply chain disruptions, while depleting the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve, and sending billions to America’s oil exporting enemies such as Iran and Venezuela. 
Biden’s economic hangover continues today, hindering President Trump’s current efforts to reinvigorate the American economy.
<a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Inflation</a> remains stubbornly high today, at 3% for the year ending January 2025. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/27/weekly-jobless-claims-jump-to-242000-more-than-expected-in-latest-sign-of-economic-softening.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jobless</a> claims are increasing as well, passing 240,000 in the latest report from the government, as companies prepare for an economic slowdown. While energy prices are coming down, Americans are still feeling the price at the pump, as they are at the grocery store, as Bird Flu has resulted in 166 million chickens, turkeys, and ducks being <a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-02-26/poultry-culling-hasnt-stopped-h5n1-bird-flu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">culled</a>, driving the price of both eggs and poultry to astronomic levels.
There is a path to near term economic recovery, and the Trump administration is pursuing six critical paths to economic recovery, growth, and prosperity.
First, the administration is working to get government spending under control. Trump has done this by forming the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, under the influence of Elon Musk. This new organization has already identified billions in governmental waste, fraud, and abuse in one month. It has also worked to make the government more efficient by updating IT infrastructure. If nothing else, the work of DOGE has made the American people feel that, finally, the government may be spending their money in a responsible manner.
Second, Trump is working to make the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of his previous term permanent. This would stimulate the economy by avoiding the largest tax increase in American history and giving the American consumer the confidence needed to spend and invest.
Third, the administration is pursuing more deregulation. From accelerating approvals for new American factories, to expedited oil exploration permits, reversing regulation removes the chains from American businesses and fosters investment, all of which stimulate the economy in a non-inflationary manner, creating growth.
Fourth, implementing tariffs to protect domestic industries will stimulate the economy and will not be inflationary. As a free-market economist, this pains me to write, but it is needed, especially the reciprocal tariffs on countries who put import tariffs on American goods such as cars, bourbon, and energy. A pro-tariff policy will either encourage direct investment in the United States or level the playing field for American business — either of which will stimulate employment.
Fifth, continue to pursue energy dominance. Rolling back green energy regulations and mandates that currently discourage oil and gas exploration, and hinder energy exports will boost the energy sector, reduce the cost of energy, and provide working Americans with much needed additional disposable income.
Sixth, the administration must continue to control the border and deport those in the United States illegally. The presence of these illegal workers, those who do work, drives down <a href="https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/9.13.23_camarota_testimony_help_subcommittee_hearing_on_open_borders_and_workforce.pdf">wages</a> for American citizens. The removal of these illegal workers will help American workers’ wages grow and recoup the losses caused by inflation under the Biden administration.
President Trump and his administration are pursuing the correct strategies to recreate and surpass the pre-COVID Trump economy. He must continue to act boldly and aggressively to drive these changes as fast as possible and help the American worker.
* * *
Jim Nelles is a Navy veteran and supply chain consultant based in Chicago. His articles have appeared in the Washington Examiner, Newsweek, Foxnews.com, and the Daily Wire. He has served as a chief procurement officer, chief supply chain officer, and chief operations officer for multiple companies.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Inflation

Overcoming The Biden Economic Hangover

American Rescue Plan

Biden Administration

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Elon Musk

Interest Rates

Mortgages

Watchdog group Consumers&#8217; Research warned butter giant <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/land-olakes-drops-its-racist-native-american-packaging-after-nearly-100-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Land O’Lakes</a> on Friday that its climate-focused initiatives could expose it to lawsuits that may raise costs for customers, according to a letter first shared with The Daily Wire. 
In a <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Land-O-Lakes-Industry-Warning-Letter.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford, Consumers&#8217; Research Executive Director Will Hild said that the agricultural company should stop pushing net-zero initiatives and focus on satisfying customers. Hild said the climate targets could create legal risks, pointing to a <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2024/attorney-general-james-sues-worlds-largest-beef-producer-misrepresenting" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a> filed against meat processor JBS by New York Attorney General Letitia James over its climate promises. 
&#8220;Consumers’ Research is concerned that it is only a matter of time before national grocers, food producers, and food retailers, including Land O&#8217; Lakes, Inc., are subjected to state actions targeting their unrealistic net-zero commitments, as has happened with JBS,&#8221; Hild wrote.
Hild’s letter pointed to multiple Land O&#8217;Lakes climate goals, which closely mirror net-zero targets set by JBS. These goals, featured in its <a href="https://careers.landolakesinc.com/us/en/blogarticle/2021-esg-report-commitment-to-social-responsibility" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2021 ESG report</a> and 2023 <a href="https://api.landolakesinc.com/getmedia/8eea43e3-8d04-49ef-bf06-33204ed772d3/1224-lol-cir-digital.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Community Impact report</a>, include reducing direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2030, and net-zero in 2050.
&#8220;As this comparison makes plain, Land O&#8217; Lakes’ statements on emissions reduction goals expose the company to the same type of litigation JBS currently faces,&#8221; Hild wrote.
James has alleged that JBS’s net-zero target is “greenwashing” that “exploits the pocketbooks of everyday Americans and the promise of a healthy planet for future generations” by misleading customers. 
&#8220;The JBS lawsuit by General James has made plain that there is risk lurking in the ESG and sustainability commitments of countless grocers and food retailers. There is no better time than now for Land O&#8217; Lakes to course correct, remove this ESG risk, and pivot back to a pro-consumer approach to its business,&#8221; Hild wrote.
The letter went out the same time as Consumers&#8217; Research sent out a “woke alert” detailing how Land O’Lakes has embraced a variety of other DEI and ESG policies. 
For example, the company detailed in its 2021 ESG report that it had mandated “unconscious bias training for all people leaders,” noted that the company has an annual DEI-themed summit, and boasted that it scored 100% when ranked by the leftist Human Rights Campaign. 
Its 2023 community impact report also included a bar measuring how many non-white males it had working for the company. 
<div id="attachment_859881" style="width: 1472px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-859881" class="size-full wp-image-859881" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-01-16-at-12.32.17-PM.png" alt="" width="1462" height="566" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-01-16-at-12.32.17-PM.png 1462w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-01-16-at-12.32.17-PM-300x116.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-01-16-at-12.32.17-PM-1024x396.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Screen-Shot-2025-01-16-at-12.32.17-PM-768x297.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1462px) 100vw, 1462px" />Screen shot: Community impact report Land O&#8217;Lakes.</div>
The report said that the company wants to &#8220;expand supplier equity&#8221; and has instituted a &#8220;Supplier Diversity Program.&#8221; This program is for the company to focus on working with businesses owned by women, minorities, people who identify as gay or transgender, and disabled people.
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In addition to its net-zero goals, Land O&#8217;Lakes also pushes several climate focused initiatives.
For example, the community impact report said that the company was “committed to helping our member-owners reduce the environmental impact of farming, especially the impacts of on-farm greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions” through its Dairy 2025 initiative. As part of this project, the company hires consultants to measure the farmers&#8217; “milk emission factor.”
In 2020, the Minnesota-based Land O&#8217;Lakes dropped the American Indian woman who had adorned its packaging for nearly 100 years after some people complained the logo was racist.

Albertsons U.S. IPO Seeks Up To $1.3 Billion

EXCLUSIVE: Watchdog Warns Land O’Lakes To Steer Clear Of ‘Unrealistic’ Climate Targets

Business

Climate Change

Corporations

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Letitia James

Woke Culture

Wokeness

BlackRock announced this week that it was leaving a major climate activist group after Republicans criticized its involvement with the group. 
The company <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-09/blackrock-leaves-major-climate-group-amid-wall-street-exodus" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a letter that it would be leaving the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative, an organization of asset managers <a href="https://www.netzeroassetmanagers.org/">committed</a> to “supporting the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner.” At one point, NZAM boasted its members controlled over $57 trillion in assets. 
BlackRock’s announcement comes after 11 Republican attorneys general, led by Texas AG Ken Paxton, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/republican-ags-sue-blackrock-say-it-has-conspired-against-coal-production" target="_blank" rel="noopener">filed a lawsuit</a> in November against the asset manager over its involvement with groups like NZAM. Texas’ lawsuit accused BlackRock of violating antitrust laws by allegedly engaging in a conspiracy with other asset managers to constrict the market for coal. BlackRock has denied the allegations and said the suit is without merit. 
BlackRock’s letter, first obtained by Bloomberg, acknowledged that its involvement with NZAM “caused confusion regarding BlackRock’s practices and subjected us to legal inquiries from various public officials.”
“Our participation in NZAM didn’t impact the way we managed client portfolios,” the company said. “Therefore, our departure doesn’t change the way we develop products and solutions for clients or how we manage their portfolios.”
Despite exiting NZAM, BlackRock said it would “continue to assess material climate-related risks, alongside other investment risks, in delivering for clients.”
NZAM, which also lost the involvement of asset giant Vanguard, <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5077576-blackrock-leaves-net-zero-climate-group/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> it was sad to see BlackRock go.
“We are disappointed to see any investor withdraw, but as a voluntary initiative, we respect any individual decisions signatories take,” NZAM told The Hill. “Climate risk is financial risk. NZAM exists to help investors mitigate these risks and to realise the benefits of the economic transition to net zero.”
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Will Hild, the executive director of Consumer’s Research, an organization opposed to the injection of politics into business, told The Daily Wire that the result of companies like BlackRock’s involvement in NZAM was to raise prices for consumers and lower the return for investors. 
“This should be music to the ears of every consumer in the entire country,” he said of BlackRock leaving NZAM. “It’s a good thing for consumers because it’s going to help alleviate some of the inflationary effects of ESG and net zero.”
He attributed BlackRock’s exit to Donald Trump&#8217;s re-election and Paxton&#8217;s lawsuit.

First Day Of Trading For 2025 At The NYSE And NASDAQ

BlackRock Exits Climate Activist Group After Pressure From Republicans

BlackRock

Texas

Economist Paul Krugman has retired as a columnist for the New York Times, a former newspaper. Krugman published his final column Monday, and headlined it, “I will not be retiring from the New York Times,” in order to continue his unbroken record of being wrong about every single thing. Krugman began his column in January 2000 and won the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics for his discovery that money doesn’t really talk, that’s just a metaphor. He says he’s now going to cash in his investments in Kodak and Pets.com so he can afford to devote all his time to his tinfoil farm, where he grows the hats that help him communicate with the invisible spirits who see the economic future before it happens. In his final offering, Krugman reminisced about his most important columns, including his famous 2008 masterpiece, “Why the Good Times will Never End,” along with some older columns like “The Government Can Borrow as Much as It Wants As Long as the Moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter Aligns with Mars,” and some recent ones, like “Don’t Blink or You’ll Miss the Transitory Inflation,” and “What’s Everyone Complaining About? My Intel Stock is Poised to Go Through the Roof.”
After Krugman announced his retirement from the opinion page — which is sometimes fondly called by nicknames like Knucklehead Row or Fathead City or what a bunch of stupid a-holes — the Big Brains of the page honored Krugman with a retirement party. A wild time was had by all as Charles Blow showed off his intellectual prowess by buttoning his shirt correctly while David Brooks and Thomas Friedman competed to see which of them would be first to figure out how to turn his Super Mario hat so that the brim faced forward. As the bubbly flowed and the anti-depressants were passed around, the gang grew nostalgic talking about their own famous columns, like that insightful Charles Blow favorite, “White People Are Meanies,” and David Brooks’ book on the importance of character, called, “How to Dump Your Wife for a Younger Woman,” not to mention Thomas Friedman’s thoughtful essay for last month’s Sunday Magazine, “Basheer al-Assad, a Leader with Staying Power.” Meanwhile, Ross Douthat threatened to ruin the festivities by continually grabbing the arms of passersby and screaming, “Look at me! I’m a sane, rational man! I am not supposed to be here! Please send help!”
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
The task of finding a replacement for Krugman now falls to the Times editorial board, which includes such journalistic powerhouses as the Mango Tango crayon from the jumbo size Crayola Box, a wax replica of the miraculously preserved corpse of Vladimir Lenin and that guy who walks up and down 47th Street screaming at his mother in her home in the sky. The question before them is: how to create a column that can match the level of Paul Krugman’s wit and wisdom without it becoming a series of meaningless characters that only resemble words until you look at them closely. 
One idea is to brighten up the opinion page with a typical Times Relationship column that will give readers helpful advice on where to find the best porn, how to arrange a throuple with your soon-to-be-former friends, and how you can spice up your marriage by refusing to sleep with your spouse. Another idea is a column called “Poor Little Dirtbag,” in which every week a Times writer explains why we should feel compassion for a different terrorist, pervert, murderer or Times editorialist while forgetting all about the suffering of his victim or subscriber. And finally, the board discussed a possible column by Times Editor-in-Chief Blithering Prevarication the Third called, “Why I Hate Donald Trump So So Much,” in which every single day Mr. Third gives yet another reason why he hates Donald Trump so, so much. But that idea was rejected after the editors decided it would be indistinguishable from the current opinion page.
In a statement to Times readers, the editorial board wrote, “We hope all our devoted subscribers will take a moment off from playing Wordle, and say a fond farewell to Mr. Krugman. His departure will leave a dark empty hole where his column used to be, so probably you won’t notice any difference.”
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. He is the bestselling author of the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A WOMAN UNDERGROUND</a>,” is now available. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Portraits Of The Economist Paul Krugman At The Rafael Del Pino Foundation In Madrid

Man Who Was Wrong About Everything Retires From NY Times

Andrew Klavan

Humor

New York Times

Paul Krugman

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In previous articles, we looked closely at two of the three main pillars to President-elect Trump’s supply-side economic growth agenda: Increasing <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supply-side-trumponomics-part-one-drill-baby-drill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">energy production</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supply-side-trumponomics-part-two-tax-cuts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cutting taxes</a>. Now for the third and final pillar, regulatory reform. 
As anyone who’s ever taken a decent Principles of Economics course knows, prices are determined by the &#8220;market forces&#8221; of supply and demand. Demand represents consumers’ preferences over various goods, while supply represents the &#8220;costs of production&#8221; businesses face in producing those goods.
Economic growth happens over time when forces begin to shift the supply curve to the right. I hammer this point home with my students and make them repeat the slogan, &#8220;The recipe for economic growth is to push the supply curve to the right.&#8221;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-838525 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/Supply-1.png" alt="" width="512" height="209" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/Supply-1.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/Supply-1-300x122.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></div>
Government regulations imposed on businesses and their products, however, act just like taxes in that they raise the cost of production, pushing the supply curve for any given product &#8220;up and to the left,&#8221; which raises price and reduces quantity.
Likewise, government actions that ease or remove those regulations have the opposite effect, pushing supply curves &#8220;down and to the right,&#8221; reducing price, raising quantity, and increasing economic growth.
Supply-side economists like Art Laffer tout the benefits of Trump’s big 2017 tax cut package, and certainly those tax cuts paid off handsomely in Trump’s first term economy (pre-Covid). Renewed tax cuts will have a similar effect in Trump’s second term. But according to Trump himself, <a href="https://nam.org/manufacturers-appreciate-president-trumps-focus-on-curbing-the-regulatory-onslaught-32795/?stream=policy-legal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">business leaders</a> told him repeatedly that his regulatory reforms were an even more powerful tool for boosting productivity and growth.
<h3>Deregulation</h3>
Regulations are like taxes in that they impose costs on businesses, but burdensome regulations are worse than taxes because in most cases the people get little to nothing in return. At least with taxes the government gets revenue that it can ostensibly use for infrastructure, defense, and other public goods.
According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s <a href="https://cei.org/studies/ten-thousand-commandments-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">annual report</a> on the federal regulatory burden, &#8220;Ten Thousand Commandments,&#8221; as of 2024, federal regulations impose costs north of $2.1 trillion on the U.S. economy. Government paperwork takes up 10.34 billion hours of work time, and the government’s regulation log — the federal register — checks in at well over 89,000 pages, very close to its all-time high at the end of the Obama years.
Regulations are like barnacles on a ship: each one is small, seemingly insignificant, and invisible to the casual observer. Over time, however, regulations accumulate and greatly impair the ship’s hydrodynamic efficiency. It’s well past time to give the hull of this economy a massive scrubbing.
Trump’s first term featured a big push to reduce the regulatory burden on U.S. businesses. He famously targeted a 2:1 regulatory reform ratio — for every new rule enacted, two existing regs would be eliminated. This valiant effort bore some fruit. Trump had a few notable deregulation successes early in his first term. Many of these were simply Congressional vetoes of impending Obama-era regulation, but Trump also made strides in streamlining the permitting process for infrastructure projects.
Trump’s efforts pushed the federal register to a modern low of 61,308 pages, and Trump’s first term saw far <a href="https://www.cato.org/regulation/summer-2020/deregulation-under-trump#findings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fewer new regulatory measures</a> as compared with recent administrations. Ultimately, Trump’s first-term deregulatory program was a mixed bag, as many deregulation efforts were stymied by &#8220;deep state&#8221; resistance or held up in the courts.
Trump knows the power of deregulation and <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/finance-and-economy/3144599/trump-assault-administrative-state/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has pledged</a> to boost the regulatory reform ratio to 10:1 in the second term — axing ten rules for each new one adopted. This is ambitious to be sure, but much can be done by simply peeling off regulations that were piled on by the Biden administration.
The incoming Trump administration has already taken concrete steps to sharpen their focus on government regulation reform and addressing waste with the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Congress will also play a big role in this process, as will Trump’s solid deregulation-minded cabinet picks like Lee Zeldin (EPA), Chris Wright (Energy), and Doug Burgum (Interior). These men know their economics and are fully aware that burdensome regulations stifle economic growth like nothing else.
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Deregulatory efforts in the second Trump Administration will also be hugely abetted by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling repealing so-called &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-was-a-fisheries-killer-the-fisherman-who-fought-chevron-deference-all-the-way-to-the-supreme-court">Chevron deference&#8221;</a> which will significantly pare back government agencies’ rule-making powers and really grease the skids for deregulation.
Tax cuts, regulatory easing, and booming energy production — each of these policy levers has, by itself, the potential to restore strong growth in output, jobs, and personal incomes. If president Trump’s next administration can hit the supply-side trifecta, he will almost certainly be able to deliver on J.D. Vance’s promise of the &#8220;greatest economic comeback in American history.&#8221; 
Donald Trump may well go down in history as the leader who made &#8220;supply side economics&#8221; a household word and showed us all the wonderful possibilities when policymakers who understand basic economics have the guts to ignore the tut-tutting experts and wreck the uniparty consensus that tolerates economic stagnation. Full speed ahead with the supply-side reform package. We should do everything we can to help Donald Trump push supply curves to the right and Make America (economically) Great Again.
* * *
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supply-side-trumponomics-part-one-drill-baby-drill">RELATED: Supply-Side Trumponomics, Part One: ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’</a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supply-side-trumponomics-part-two-tax-cuts">RELATED: Supply-Side Trumponomics, Part Two: Tax Cuts</a>
* * *
Tyler Watts is a professor of economics at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Donald Trump Watches SpaceX Launch Its Sixth Test Flight Of Starship Spacecraft

Supply-Side Trumponomics, Part Three: Regulatory Reform

2024 Election

Federal Government

federal regulation

In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supply-side-trumponomics-part-one-drill-baby-drill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previous article</a>, we looked at three policy areas ripe for large “positive supply shocks” and a rapid return of the U.S. economy to a high-growth, low-inflation situation: Energy production, tax cuts, and regulations.
First, Americans could see a significant reduction in energy costs under Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” plan designed to unleash American “energy dominance.” Next, we turn to phase two of Trump’s supply-side suite, the tried-and-true tool of widespread tax reductions.
<h3>Tax Cuts</h3>
To frame our discussion of supply-side tax cuts, let’s briefly review the “determinants of supply” — factors that can shift a product’s supply curve, summarized by the acronym TTEP#: Technology, Taxes, Expectations, Price of resources, # of producers.
The area where government can have a large and sudden impact should be screamingly obvious: taxes.
Yes, taxes are needed to fund essential government services. But economists recognize that taxes are costs. Higher sales taxes raise the cost of goods; higher income taxes raise the cost of earning a living; higher corporate taxes raise the cost of running a business. Obviously, reducing taxes on work and production (business and individual income taxes) will reduce the overall cost of producing goods, stimulating more work and production, and thus shifting supply curves to the right. Donald Trump understands this intuitively, which is why one of his signature agenda items in his first term was a large tax cut, particularly focused on business (corporate) taxation, via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). 
Supply-side tax cuts have been tried and found amazingly successful on multiple occasions in U.S. history. Large income tax cuts in the 1920s (Mellon-Coolidge), 1960s (Kennedy-Johnson), 1980s (Reagan), and 2017 (Trump) led to corresponding economic booms and strong growth in personal income, output, and employment. 
The history and impact of these (and more) tax reforms was chronicled by the Godfather of modern supply-side economics, Arthur Laffer, with coauthors Brian Domitrovic and Jeanne Sinquefield, in their recent book, &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Taxes-Have-Consequences-Income-History/dp/1637585640/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1XSDHO3Q0YH3P&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xu1XlM3jlOoD2hFrXGGZsA3AvTa81rKTZSeSwxTAc78SSYDcfj6Ce9LxRj8n7EbZDZ_ctwl3a4LOsayoPTsZz-DDK0xfkzSC-gVSLI6bJjYu1MUbZ0XSB1n3bXWIWKhn_L8hfc5x8rVboLmw2No0q89DoNqtN6Guk8NYmD5QJxdqDC6kGJmZkp-4oXjSEI-97PCv-bx--zTm5Ou3-ohksxmSaAzss6XInp315Q90hHQ.5ulo-v-Uewzzer1g7Nl3TGRiiyUVgo-iZVpy8pKxGJw&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=taxes+have+consequences&amp;qid=1731166728&amp;sprefix=taxes+have+conseq%2Caps%2C1723&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Taxes Have Consequences</a>.&#8221; As I noted <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11138-023-00613-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">elsewhere</a>, the authors document no less than five distinct episodes of significant tax cutting, from Mellon’s aggressive 1920s rate cuts, to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Art Laffer himself promoted as an advisor to the Trump Administration. Each tax cut generated an economic boom with above-trend GDP growth and (eventual) increases in federal income tax revenue. &#8220;Taxes Have Consequences&#8221; is a fact-based, unassailable chronicle of the power of tax rate reductions and tax code simplifications to supercharge economic growth. 
Trump’s tax agenda for 2025 has two big parts and several smaller ones. The TCJA cuts are scheduled to sunset at the end of 2025, so the priority will be making them permanent. The other big tax change Trump proposed on the campaign trail is a further significant reduction of the corporate income tax, from 21% down to a world-beating 15%, contingent on corporations promising to onshore production. Other measures of note include allowing 100% deduction of most business investment spending, and eliminating taxes on tips and Social Security benefits. 
Skeptics and doubters will, of course, bristle at further tax cuts. Leftists will whine about “tax cuts for the rich” and pooh-pooh their favorite bogeyman of “trickle down economics.” Even some wimpy conservatives will argue that most of the tax cut juice was already squeezed out in Trump’s first-term reforms, and that further tax cuts risk significant increases in the federal deficit and debt. Trump knows from experience, however, that tax cuts are still a powerful tool. After all, the top income tax rate right now is still 37%; Reagan’s reforms got us down to a top rate of just 28% by 1988, so there’s still room to cut. 
As a world-class businessman, Trump knows that pushing that corporate rate down even lower can turbocharge business formation and capital spending, the underlying factors driving growth in productivity, jobs, and wages. When Trump first entered office in 2017, the U.S. corporate income tax was among the highest in the world at 31%. Even with the TCJA reduction to 21%, the U.S. still taxes corporate profits at a higher rate than most European countries. There’s much more room to trim these taxes and improve America’s business climate.
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As for the revenue &amp; deficit impact: as Art Laffer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCk2-QVqCck&amp;pp=ygUQdGhlIGxhZmZlciBjdXJ2ZQ%3D%3D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reminds us</a>, tax cuts have the potential to boost government revenue, as the “incentive to work/ earn more” effect can swamp the “government gets a smaller slice of my paycheck” effect. 
Trump has also made statements about possibly <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/26/trump-joe-rogan-election-tariffs-income-tax-replace.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">offsetting income tax revenues</a> with new tariffs, which is causing heartburn for some hardcore free-trade, libertarian economists. While I’m not a big fan of “protectionist” tariffs, I think it’s smart to view Trump’s threat of tariffs as both a hardball negotiating tactic and part of a bigger vision of pro-growth tax reform. Indeed, Trump has even made <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-policy.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent statements</a> about eliminating the income tax altogether and replacing it with a pre-1913-style revenue tariff. Any free market economist worth his salt should see such a move as the biggest positive supply shock in world history. Income taxes are one of the most costly and economically distorting ways to raise revenue. Leftists pushing high tax rates have been open about using the income tax regime mainly as a <a href="https://youtu.be/gJimLZRC9N8?si=hshc1uPf457qzUUC">tool of social engineering and redistribution</a>, efficiency and incentives be damned. Reductions in compliance costs alone would justify swapping the income tax for tariffs. 
This kind of radical reform is far off, but Trump’s overall instincts are good here. Keep trimming away at taxes on the work and investment incomes of Americans, and reap the benefits of boosting incentives for production and capital formation. He did it before with 2017’s TCJA, and through a renewed focus on strategic tax cuts, he make America’s economy boom again.
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<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supply-side-trumponomics-part-one-drill-baby-drill">RELATED: Supply-Side Trumponomics, Part One: ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’</a>
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Tyler Watts is a professor of economics at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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