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Economist EJ Antoni, bucking the mainstream hysteria, is explaining that Donald Trump isn’t launching a trade war; he’s exposing the extremely unbalanced trade war the U.S. has been losing for decades.
In a hard-hitting op-ed for Fox News, Antoni compared Trump to one of his Republican presidential predecessors, U.S. Grant, for sheer grit and determination in spite of smear campaigns and prophecies of failure. The reality is that other countries have been imposing unfair tariffs on American goods while demanding no reciprocal tariffs for years. Trump is just insisting that other countries pay the same tariffs they require us to pay. The trade war already existed; it’s just that Trump wants to win.
Antoni insisted, “Trump is being attacked for being anti-free trade or for starting a trade war, but the opposite is true. For most of the last half century, the global economy has become entrenched in a pseudo-free trade that artificially disadvantages American exporters.”
He added, “In this sense, other nations declared a trade war on America decades ago, and our leaders never fought back.“ Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are meant to pressure other nations that do, in fact, rely on American trade and American consumers “to reduce their trade barriers and end a trade war that already exists.”
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