Victor Davis Hanson: Here is the 'hard data' that backs Trump's tariffs policy
Fox News contributor Mary Katharine Ham and Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson discuss President Donald Trump's tariffs pause and leverage against China on 'The Ingraham Angle.'
In 2020, when the COVID panic hit the U.S., it was a bad era for freedom, property rights, Main Street and the American Dream.
The mantra driven heavily by the left was that small businesses needed to be closed and personal freedoms needed to be limited to meet their narrative. The left screamed "do something" with no regard if that something would produce better or worse outcomes.
States across the country took what makes America great and threw it in the toilet, opting for heavy-handed central planning instead of allowing people to make decisions on what was best for them.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick holds a chart as President Donald Trump speaks on tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
This was based on faulty information, bad strategy and tactics, and a large-scale willingness to forgo personal freedoms.
GLOBAL SYSTEM TOOK ADVANTAGE OF AMERICA ON TRADE AND DEFENSE. THAT FREE RIDE IS OVER
Many of us who warned about this were met with resistance for quite some time. Eventually, more people came around to the mistakes and promised this would not happen again.
Today, embedded in the discourse around tariffs, we are seeing many of the same behaviors and language. But staggeringly, it is many on the right that are standing on the wrong side of freedom.
There are, no doubt, myriad fiscal issues plaguing the U.S. today.
AN AMBITIOUS TRADE DEAL WITH INDIA IS IN OUR GRASP
The Biden administration left the Trump administration a giant fiscal mess. After Biden propped up growth with massive deficit spending, our U.S. debt/GDP grew to north of 120%. Our deficit/GDP in the 6-7% range is now that of a country at war. Our spending on interest to service our debt exceeds U.S. defense spending, which is a massive warning sign. Biden’s historic inflation remains difficult to combat.
The Trump administration’s options are limited given all the above, current interest rates, massive financing and refinancing of debt that needs to happen this year and other factors.
However, tariffs are unlikely to work as a tactic to solve the above.
TRUMP RISKS IT ALL, TAKES ON THE WORLD WITH TARIFFS AND PUTS AMERICA FIRST
In the panic of "do something," many Trump supporters are sacrificing principles, sounding more like the left then purveyors of conservative values.
Small businesses who bore the brunt of the COVID mandates, their after-effects and inflation, are now at risk again. Those who have part or all of their supply chain abroad are going to have a hard time surviving if this goes on much longer and they are not exempted from tariffs.
I have heard over and over again on social media that those businesses don’t deserve to exist, basically the same thing that I wrote about in "The War on Small Business" after COVID, when the left told small businesses they needed to close for "the greater good" as they defined it.
THE TRUTH ABOUT TARIFFS AND THE HISTORY LESSON MANY CRITICS ARE MISSING
That’s not freedom or America first – that’s central planning garbage.
Moreover, most of those spewing rhetoric don’t realize that small businesses that have part of their business abroad is still America first. Small businesses in the U.S. exploit comparative advantages in the supply chain. The same businesses often have personnel in design, marketing, sales, administration and other functions in the U.S. that create American jobs.
They may sell all over the globe, getting desired products not just to Americans, but to citizens of other countries as well. When those foreign citizens buy the products, they are supporting American jobs and sending their capital to the U.S. Those profits are invested and spent, often in America.
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Telling these businesses not to exist in support of "the greater good" is communist-type thinking.
Moreover, if millions of these small businesses go under, not only will those jobs, profits and capital be removed from America, it is likely a foreign company or a massive corporation will pick up the opportunity and benefit.
That is not America first.
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We have many issues to solve economically, but most of those have been caused by moving away from freedom and capitalism. Going further in that direction leaves us without principles and will likely make matters worse.
Hopefully, the Trump administration will help Main Street thrive, but that needs to be done with incentives, not anti-freedom barriers.
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