Top voices on tariffs: Paul Krugman, John H. Cochrane, Olivier Blanchard, Hannah Ritchie and 1 other.
They have counted what tariffs do and disagree about what the counting shows.
Our reading of what a group of claims have in common, one level above a korrent: a korrent is our reading of what somebody said, a view is our reading of what several korrents share. The claims are printed under it, so the sentence can be checked against them.
Nobody is filed under a view — claims are. A person is named here because a dated claim of theirs sits under it, and somebody whose claims sit under two views appears under both.
A viewour reading
Their wordsIn fact, the U.S. trade deficit for all of 2025 was about the same as it was in 2024.
Their wordsTrump also claimed that his tariffs would revive American manufacturing. In fact, manufacturing employment has declined since Liberation Day.
Their wordsRevenue from the Trump tariffs, even pre-Court, wasn’t enough to make a large dent in the deficit.
Mental modelIncentives
Their wordsIt has been clear from the beginning that a primary motivation for tariffs was that they empowered Trump personally.
A viewour reading
Their wordsTariffs are easy: The right answer is unilateral free trade.
Their wordsthis story tells us how an increase in foreign demand to save in the US rather than at home will push up the dollar, and cause the trade deficit, which is in effect how foreigners send us factories which they would rather build here than in their own countries.
Their wordsIn sum, spurred on by the federal government (in many ways), the US borrowed a huge amount from foreigners at very low rates, and went on a consumption binge. Sooner or later we have to pay it back, or we go though the wrenching adjustment of a debt crisis.
Mental modelSecond-order thinking
Their wordsBut the spike in interest rates require to do this would be huge. And the trade shock will cause a sharp recession, or worse, putting even more stress on the budget. A debt crisis is likely along the way as the US finds it impossible to roll over debt.
Their wordsCure the disease, not the symptoms. Reform taxes to tax consumption, not saving and investment. Stop funneling borrowed money to consumption.
A viewour reading
Their wordsBusiness only raise prices when accounting losses force them to do so.
Their wordsI suspect higher prices make people leave more quickly than lower prices make them come.
Their wordsI believe that, except in times of hyperinflation, the price level does not behave as an asset price but as the aggregate of billions of mostly backward-looking decisions, and that expectations of future primary balances have little effect on the price level today.
A viewour reading
Their wordsThe average European and UK voter, once he or she moves on from immigration, will notice how Europe and the UK have made energy unaffordable, stopped its growth-exactly as degrowthers wish-and deindustrialized, on the altar of climate policies that do nothing to improve the climate.
Their wordsAnother factor that is killing Europe’s competitiveness — not just for batteries but for many industrial products — is the high electricity costs.
Their wordsBut you cannot support these programs while calling out China for “cheating” for doing the same.
Mental modelSecond-order thinking
Their wordsThat’s because most clean energy jobs are in deployment and maintenance rather than manufacturing, and since higher costs slow down the rollout of renewables, increasing prices reduces the total number of people working in clean energy (even if the number working in manufacturing increases).
Mental modelTrade-offs
Their wordsWe cannot sustain the most stringent environmental and social norms, invest less than our competitors, have a more naive trade policy than them and think that we will continue to generate jobs. This no longer holds together.
Asserted relations, each with the curator’s reason — never computed, because similarity cannot tell agreement from opposition.
These cannot both be true
Cochrane says the right answer is unilateral free trade and that the rest is explaining why the objections fail. Macron says Europe cannot run a more naive trade policy than its competitors and still expect to create jobs, which is the objection stated as a policy. One of them is describing the other as naive.
These pull against each other
Macron says Europe cannot run a more naive trade policy than its competitors and still expect to create jobs. Ritchie says tariffs on Chinese clean energy cut the total number of clean-energy jobs, because most of them are in deployment rather than manufacturing and higher prices slow the rollout. Both are counting jobs, and they count them in opposite directions.
The first rests on the second
The predicted interest-rate spike follows only if the trade deficit is the capital surplus seen from the other side. If foreigners are not financing the budget deficit by buying American assets, closing the trade gap does not force domestic savings to replace them.
Matched by wording, not yet read into a view. The archive grows on its own, so this is where new claims wait for somebody to read them.
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