Phil Magness: The Problem With Trumponomics
Economic historian Phil Magness on the real history of tariffs and why Trump is so wrong about them.
What would a Mar-a-Lago accord look like? Just asking questions.
Phil Magness is an economic historian with the Independent Institute who has deeply studied the history of tariffs and trade. We invited him on the show to talk about the "global economic reordering" described by Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the president's escalating tariffs, the looming threat of a trade war, the shaky stock market, and the so-called "Mar-a-Lago Accord" that may shed more light on what the Trump administration's economic agenda really is.
Sources Referenced:
- Trump's full speech wherein he floats replacing the income tax with tariffs
- Magness' dissertation: From Tariffs to the Income Tax
- Income Tax: The Root of All Evil, by Frank Chodorov
- U.S. government revenue history with charts
- Just Asking Questions with Tyler Cowen: "Why do we refuse to learn from history?"
- Just Asking Questions with Phil Magness: "Who really pays the most taxes?"
- "Full interview: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Trump's tariffs moves," by CBS
- Just Asking Questions with Kelsey Piper: "The AI Race is Accelerating"
- A User's Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System, by Hudson Bay Capital
- U.S. dollar index chart
- "David Sacks on Bitcoin Reserve, Auditing Crypto, AI," by Bloomberg Technology
Chapters:
- 00:00:00 Coming up…
- 00:00:27 Trump's Confused Tariff History
- 00:06:39 The Dual Purpose of Tariffs
- 00:09:44 Tariffs as Foreign Policy Tools
- 00:11:26 Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression
- 00:15:38 The Great Forgetting of Trade History
- 00:20:54 National Security Justifications for Tariffs
- 00:25:32 Debating Strategic Industries Like Semiconductors
- 00:30:06 J.D. Vance, Industrial Decline, and Economic Nostalgia
- 00:37:31 Auto Industry, Union Labor, and Protectionism
- 00:40:34 The Mar-A-Lago Accord Explained
- 00:45:58 Should Other Countries Pay for U.S. Security?
- 00:49:33 Can Tariffs Be Effective Negotiation Tools?
- 00:53:37 Will Weakening the Dollar Backfire?
- 00:57:08 Do Tariffs Cause Inflation?
- 01:00:41 The U.S. Government's Bitcoin Sovereign Wealth Fund
- 01:06:59 Final Thoughts and What We Should Be Asking
- Producer: John Osterhoudt
