Log in
In a statement, the intelligence agency said the designation was “due to the extremist nature of the entire party, which disregards human dignity.” The statement cited the group’s anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant orientation.
May 11, 2025
Mr. Howard Lutnick
Secretary, United States Department of Commerce
Washington, DC
Mr. Lutnick:
When CNN’s Dana Bash pointed out to you this morning that – in her clear words – “the cost of tariffs are paid by American consumers,” you responded: “Well, I disagree with that, you know” – implying that you believe that foreign producers, in response to the tariffs, will lower the prices they charge American buyers by the full amount of the tariffs.
But you’re also on record predicting that President Trump’s tariffs will spark an American “manufacturing renaissance.”
Can you explain how tariffs will incite Americans to buy fewer manufactured imports – and, hence, more American-made goods to launch that “manufacturing renaissance” – if the prices that foreign producers charge Americans for manufactured imports don’t rise? How would that work???
Do you really not see that it is logically impossible for U.S. tariffs both not to raise the prices that Americans pay for imports and to discourage Americans from buying imports, which discouraging is necessary to increase American manufacturing?
Each semester I teach an auditorium full of college freshmen. In more than 40 years in the classroom, I do not recall a single student committing such an egregious error as you commit in peddling to the American public your and Pres. Trump’s poisonous protectionism.
I’m quite certain that you’re not a stupid man; you can’t possibly believe all that you say about the administration’s trade ‘policy.’ I can conclude only that you have no respect for the intelligence of ordinary Americans.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
The post Open Letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared first on Cafe Hayek.