April 7, 2025

THAT WAS FAST: WH Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett: More Than 50 Countries Started Trade Negotiations This Weekend.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, what do you base your – where do you base your conclusion that you’re not going to see an increase in prices? Just about every economist who’s looked at this said you are going to see an increase in prices, including Goldman Sachs, including JP Morgan, including the chairman of the Federal Reserve?

HASSETT: Well, there might be some increase in prices. But the fact is that if we’re going to be a heavy burden on the U.S. consumer, then this trade deficit that for 30 years we’ve seen really since China entered the WTO would be something that would have gone down. It would have gone down over time. It would have responded to the prices.

The bottom line is that China entered the WTO in 2000. In the 15 years that followed, real incomes declined about $1,200 cumulatively over that time.

And so, if cheap goods were the answer — if cheap goods were going to make Americans real wages, real welfare better off, then real incomes would have gone up over that time. Instead, they went down because wages went down more than prices went down.

So, we got the cheap goods at the grocery store, but then we had fewer jobs. And that’s why President Obama and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and President Trump have come out saying, we’ve got to come up with a better policy, a policy that treats our workers fairly compared to everybody else.

And now, President Trump, true to his word, just like he promised during the campaign, just like he put into his campaign platform, he’s delivering on his word.

Hang on. This ride isn’t for the squeamish.

Posted at 9:36 am by Stephen Green 49

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Make the Illegal Alien Criminals Stay at Judge Boasberg’s House. “Here’s an idea: turn Boasberg’s house into an Airbnb for the Tren de Aragua killers he’s so eager to protect. Heck, let’s raise money to help expand his residence so that he can house more of them. I’d be willing to do a fundraiser for that.”

Posted at 9:05 am by Stephen Green 53

DON’T FORGET WHAT THEY DID TO US:

Posted at 8:38 am by Glenn Reynolds 63

MARK JUDGE: Jonathan Capehart’s WaPo Hissy Fit. “Sounds pretty bad. Yet as one delves into the details of why Capehart walked, it’s Capehart himself who looks pretty bad. Imperious, while at the same time hyper-sensitive; self-righteous while morally confused; resentful while equally obtuse; ideologically brainwashed and thus incapable of independent thought, Jonathan Capehart is everything wrong with journalism in 2025. No wonder Jeff Bezos is scrambling to sweep out the stables at The Washington Post.”

Sweep faster, Jeff.

Posted at 8:14 am by Glenn Reynolds 29

IT’S ABOUT TIME: How Europe hopes to turn Ukraine into a ‘steel porcupine.’

First, Europe would procure more munitions and weapons systems on Ukraine’s behalf, including crucial air-defence missiles. Second, it would boost Ukraine’s own defence industry, which it calls “the most effective and cost-efficient way to support Ukraine’s military efforts”. The plan is the brainchild of Kaja Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister who is now the European Union’s top diplomat. She wants to double military aid to Ukraine this year, to €40bn ($44bn).

The case for investing in Ukraine’s indigenous arms industry is compelling. Ukraine was a big weapons-manufacturer during the Soviet era, but the industry largely vanished after independence in 1991. Nonetheless, there was an engineering base and a thriving new tech sector to draw on when Russia launched its full-scale invasion three years ago. The country had the foundations: a solid manufacturing sector and loads of engineering schools and universities from which people with highly specialised knowledge transitioned to defence, says Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former defence minister who chairs the Centre for Defence Strategies, a think-tank in Kyiv. “Since 2022 the development has been extremely active. There is a constant innovation process,” he adds. Whereas arms procurement in the West typically takes years, in Ukraine an idea can be translated into a weapon in a soldier’s hand within months.

Last year Ukrainian arms firms churned out $10bn-worth of kit, according to a report in March by the Ukrainian Institute for the Future (uif), another think-tank. That represented an extraordinary three-fold increase from 2023, and ten-fold from 2022. The more than 800 private and state-owned enterprises in the defence sector employ 300,000 skilled workers. Oleksandr Kamyshin, who oversees the defence industry for Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, says that this year production will be about $15bn, but the sector will have the capacity to produce about $35bn. The constraint is simply lack of money, which he hopes allies will assist with.

It’s nice to see Europe talk about really stepping up — after three years — but will they follow through?

Posted at 7:32 am by Stephen Green 69

AN OLD POINT, BUT IT CHECKS OUT:

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds 31

DO TELL:

Related:

UPDATE:

Posted at 7:14 am by Glenn Reynolds 155