OPINION:
A lot of people are concerned about the president’s tariffpalooza.
It won’t work. It can’t work. It isn’t working. There is no way to change the irresistible forces of international capital flows. The idea of bringing back American manufacturing is a mirage only fools entertain. The market is cratering. We are hurtling toward an economic reckoning unless we reverse course. No less an eminence than the richest man in the world says, even thinking about such things makes one more stupid than a brick.
I acknowledge that I was tempted to jump into all those deep, dark pools of negativity. Maybe this won’t work. Maybe it can’t work. Maybe we have to accommodate ourselves to the idea that we are in irreversible decline and have to make the best of it.
Fortunately, I spent some time this week talking with “normal” Americans in a handful of focus groups. Here’s what I learned.
There’s a healthy amount of concern about the possibility of failure, and the chaotic and iterative nature of the tariff announcements left them initially in a mild state of shock.
Like most others, I suspect the focus group participants believe that Team Trump needs to do a much better job of communicating the purpose of the tariffs, the general plan, and what success might look like. They also would appreciate some clarity about the goals and, as always, would like the volume turned down a bit.
They uniformly indicated that, like with many other things, uncertainty wears them down. Team Trump could help here by communicating more often.
That said, most participants understood that this sort of effort was inevitable and that, eventually, we would try to reshore and restore our manufacturing capability. If this president hadn’t taken these actions, the next one or the one after that, irrespective of party, would almost certainly have.
They are also keenly aware that this effort will require us to sacrifice, and while they are not excited about that, most think it is necessary. Here, too, Team Trump could help by outlining how it intends to minimize the damage associated with the tariffs rather than simply dismissing them.
Finally, and most importantly, the respondents were mildly optimistic about the chances of success, unlike the current nattering nabobs of negativism. That’s a welcome contrast, and it suggests (again) that Team Trump would be better served to emphasize the purpose and goals — why we are actually on this course — rather than just the mechanics of the effort.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the governor of Michigan, in an economic speech this week in Washington, noted that she understood the motivation underlying the tariffs. She went so far as to agree with the president that we need to make more things in America and suggested a national strategy to make that happen.
Who knows? Maybe this could be the start of a necessary bipartisan effort to increase manufacturing in the United States, improve the fortunes of the working class, and rebuild towns and cities that have been emptied and destroyed by the past two generations of “free” trade.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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