President Donald Trump took a positive step on Wednesday by introducing a 90-day pause on higher-rate tariffs. Instead, all nations except China will now face 10% tariffs, and China will face 145% tariffs.
Even if Trump’s announcement is positive, however, it is far from ideal. As illustrated by the market chaos, broken retirement accounts, and impending supply chain shocks caused by Trump’s far higher tariff announcements last week, generic tariffs are a very poor servant of economic interest. On the contrary, the vast majority of Americans have benefited greatly from an economic policy centered around free trade. This reality is vested in obvious facts.
As shown in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis charts below (my red line annotations), real median personal incomes increased by 38.2% between the 1994 introduction of the NAFTA free trade treaty and 2023. Real median…
