Trump’s Economic Nationalism Confounds Free Market Purists

Throughout his campaign Donald Trump promised to bring jobs back to America and to put America and its workforce first in all Presidential considerations. His negotiations this last week with Ford and Carrier in Indiana suggest that he is fully committed to the policies on which he campaigned. This is good news for the Broad Right, especially when placed alongside his Cincinnati speech, also this last week, when he doubled down on his promise to build the wall with Mexico.

It seems reasonable to assume that he intends to stand firm on all his campaign promises and does not intend to be a ‘read my lips’ politician. Trump’s moderate nationalism may not be ideological and it may not satisfy those on the racial Right, but it is going to be pretty uncompromising on what he has pledged to his supporters at every rally.

There are theoretical arguments for unrestricted free global trade and anyone who has ever listened to Walter Williams will be familiar with them. His argument for allowing Nation States like China to dump their steel in America at a loss sounds good. American car manufacturing companies get Chinese steel subsidized by Chinese workers so why complain? One negative is that American steel workers lose their jobs unless they toil for wages lower than the economically exploited and politically oppressed Chinese steel workers.

Well, one could say its winners and losers. American car workers win and American steel workers lose. But there is a bigger negative when other political consequences are considered. America without a steel industry, compelled to buy steel from China, would have a defense industry dependent on a rival and a possible future enemy. Some industries, once worker skills are lost and factories of machinery closed, cannot be resurrected quickly – if at all. What if we stopped making our own nuclear weapons and relied on Russia for cheap alternatives? What may be good theoretical economics may soon amount to a loss of National independence.

Extreme positions are always dangerous in both politics and economics and we might tolerate China dumping Christmas decorations through Walmart on the basis that out-of-work American decorations workers will get jobs on Walmart check-outs.

Adam Smith’s teaching cannot be dismissed as irrelevant but he was living in a different world when Great Britain had few industrial rivals and the rulers of foreign nations generally were not powerful enough to use their industries to weaken their British rival. The world has moved on and theories have to be adapted. A Nation State that wishes to be militarily and economically strong cannot afford to let many of its key industries be put out of business or lose the ability to feed itself in an international crisis.

Trump is right – as a Moderate Nationalist – to use in moderation government to protect American industries and American workers. This is not the same as protecting industries that have become inefficient and uncompetitive through slipping into the grip of politicized unions. The fully unionized British car makers and port workers of the 1960’s, whose employers were as craven as those American employers who now submit to the homosexual militants, were prime examples of industries deserving no government protection.

Economic conservative critics of Trump’s Indiana interventions have a point when they warn against Government picking business winners and losers. But at this point in time, Trump is not the President but a politician who is still – thanks to Jill Stein and her sinister and wealthy Internationalist financiers – fighting an election. The Carrier decision was a splendid propaganda coup for Trump the campaigning politician, and evidence of his tactical skills, ability to pursue many objectives simultaneously and upstage a sitting President.

If and when Trump exercises Presidential powers, he will be limited by the Constitution, Congress, his own Cabinet, and his responsibilities for the economy as President. At that point we will see Trump the Moderate Nationalist in action. Instead of dealing with fleeing industries by personal intervention, he will be able to regenerate the business and industrial landscape of America by helpful tax policies and the scrapping of the bureaucratic stranglehold that Obama and previous Administrations have built to weaken American free enterprise.

Meanwhile, Jill Stein, supported by shadowy members of the new Ruling Class, is about to shop around for a Far Left Federal judge, who will ‘legalize’ her campaign to endlessly postpone or set aside, the legal result of the election of Donald Trump. She should have no difficulty finding a Federal judge who believes in ‘Revolutionary justice’ for Obama has been packing the Federal Courts with Far Leftists just as he has packed the Department of Justice. The scandal is that over the eight years of his Presidential purging of the Federal Courts the Republicans in Congress have been silent.

It is still the opinion of this website that those promoting Stein’s antics, the violent street protests and the Sanctuary movement, are well aware that a civil war is likely to result. It is a risk they will take rather than allow their Revolution to be reversed.

One of the most reassuring aspects of the emerging Trump cabinet – apart from the appointments of resolute ex-military leaders who may soon be needed to crush Far Left violence – is the stature of most of them. Mike Pence has already proved to be much more than the usual inept and colorless VP. Trump is delegating real authority to him. The Cabinet will be made up of confident, successful people of action. Trump is confident in his own abilities and not fearful of being surrounded by strong characters. We need not fear a weak and ineffectual Administration or one of boot-lickers unwilling to counsel a moderate nationalist President.

What's Your Opinion?