I'm John Batchel. I welcome my colleague, John Cochran, at the Hoover Institution, an economist who

observes the economy through his blog, needs to be called a blog, now it's the substack page,

grumpy economist. I've never known John to spend a moment in my presence grumpy, so he must do

this elsewhere because I find him cheerful, especially when we're addressing an editorial,

an op-ed editorial in the Wall Street Journal by the President of the United States and his counselors

about tariffs and about the success the president claims since Liberation Day.

Professor John, a very good evening to you. The essay divides that you

posted, divides into two pieces, tariffs and investment. Let's look at tariffs right away,

because the president has been not exactly a measure of it consistent about how he's used

tariffs. For example, the idea was tariffs were a result of the emergency

generated by a trade deficit. But then, now and then, since then, the president has used tariffs

as a punishment or sending a particular country or a series of countries to the woodshed

because they're not obeying the president. Greenland comes to mind.

You are addressing the tariffs of the trade imbalance. Is that correct, John? Good evening to you.

Good evening, yes. Tariffs have always been an answer in search of a question, but let's try to

define the questions and see if they help to answer those questions.

Yes, economists were instinctively against tariffs because we know they're economically inefficient.

There are tax on imports, and that skews the economy in inefficient ways. But there's five, four other questions, and one of them, which we have to admit,

the president is using tariffs as a geopolitical threat.

They hurt us, but they'll hurt you more and can get other countries to do what he wants as a result.

Sometimes, well, sometimes badly, sometimes with long-term consequences, but it certainly is a different frame of reference than just taxes on imports.

Calling the trade imbalance at an emergency has yet to be ruled by the Supreme Court.

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