President Trump's Tariffs Tell The World To Be Better Friends ... And They Should Listen

The progressive, environmentalist case for raising tariffs

It’s dangerous to favor protective tariffs.

The best friends are honest with you and help you become the best version of yourself. The worst friends are those who come over and offer nothing of value. The line between a worst friend and an enemy isn’t always as clear as you might think.

I know a lot of foreigners — friend and foe and in between — read this Substack and quite a few have reached out to me directly about “Liberation Day.” Queue forms to the right, I suppose. Do please reach out. I’m sure we can work together.

To be perfectly honest with you I don’t really know what to make of a lot of the Trump Administration. This strange development has caused me to abandon my plans to return to California. I’m needed here. No, I’m not happy about it but I have reached a new state of sublime.

Lately I’ve been trying to be more positive. What even is a “loyal opposition” in this precise moment? A friend of mine describes himself as loyal to the office of the President. Another friend says he and his fellow soldiers are “the President’s Men.” Maybe that’s what we all ought to be at our highest and best uses. Institutions need blood and brains.

As this Substack picks up more and more readers I’ve started doing a lot more introspection. A friend says that I’ve gotten where I am through “negative energy” and I don’t totally think he’s right but I know he’s not as wrong as I want him to be. The problem of “negative energy” is that it consumes itself. A lot of my more negative aspects have proven rather all-consuming. I end up in slugfests with weaker people. To say it’s masochistic is an understatement.

Sure, I end up winning but princes don’t wrestle with paupers because if they win all they’ve done is beaten a pauper. If the lose the kingdom is in trouble. As much as I might try to deny it I’ve been reckless with my kingdom. I’ve gotten a reputation I don’t deserve and that reputation has been used to limit what I might do. Not a bad move, if I don’t say so myself. But I’m going to see to it that it requires my consent to ruin me.

Of course there are quite a few readers here who delight in goading me on — thanks guys! — but I am confident you will find that there is no shortage of negative content on the Internet.

All of my energies are best spent working on solutions and so I’m once again trapped in the Imperial Capital. I suppose a lot of life is but bends in the river, allowing things to flow to their ultimate destination. How much do any of us really have a choice in our lives? And why would I be any different?

But what do I know? I’m just a humble magnet builder. Do you feel the pull? Good. I’m looking for you, my needles in this haystack. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?

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I want to discuss the relationship between tariffs and venture capital which is something I’ve been thinking about a bit and which I haven’t really seen discussed in a meaningful way. I want to suggest that any effort to raise tariffs is also a way of transforming the venture capital industry, though just what that relationship is exactly I couldn’t say. I do know that it’s worth thinking about and that the tariffs which are currently happening

You’re taught that economies are a product of consumption, investment and government but what you’re not taught is how countries shape one another’s economies in all kinds of elaborate ways. Some of this is done through trade and industrial policy, of course, but also through other, more subtle means.

Think, for example, if everything is Made in China. Don’t you think that the Chinese state might want us to be more consumerist? Might they be encouraging us to overconsume? Or, think of all the countries which depend on our military (or government) working well for their own domestic stability. Don’t you think that they might have an interest in encouraging Americans to think that their domestic conflicts are really ours?

Tariffs are interesting because you get to see what happens when the flows of capital and trade are disrupted.

For example: The most recent tariffs have a very interesting effect in that they drive up the price of oil, which winds up benefiting both electric car manufacturers but also oil producers.

There’s a logic here which is why Greenland, with its promise of rare earth bounty, has attracted all this attention. Greenland potential becomes attractive as a way of talking down the Chinese and Russian monopolies on commodity extraction elsewhere. It’s a way of telling the Chinese and the Russians that we’re not going to be boxed out.

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Here’s the way venture capital really works (at least as I have come to see it).

And to be perfectly fair, the more I have studied “venture capital” the more I’ve realized that I don’t know what it really is. Or more precisely, that it is has meant wildly different things throughout history. It’s my contention that the State has always been involved in some sense the question of course is which State.

You get a sense of that when you read a few books, like VC: An American History or Sebastian Mallaby’s The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future.

There’s a relative good piece on the evolution of the venture capital industry.

The United States of America makes these things called dollars which are then used to purchase goods and services.

Lots of countries prefer to stack these dollars and then “reinvest” them in America. What they turn around and reinvest in as much about their national interest as it is about their national elites.

You can think of a lot of our high end real estate as basically Swiss bank accounts in the sky. To be sure it’s undoubtedly the case that having all these foreigners in a downtown area is useful for keeping tabs on them. It’s much easier to do international business if all the international people are surrounded by cameras. But it undoubtedly comes at the expense of young people and other professionals who might want to live in one of these cities. This foreign cash to real estate purchases, in turn, has fueled movement to the more affordable suburbs — and massive amounts of transportation costs. Should we be remaking commercial real estate into housing?

Don’t you think that President Donald Trump, who is, after all, a real estate developer might have thoughts on that? Might Trump, who, after all, knew lots of mobsters and foreigners in New York City have thought a little bit about all that malinvestment in New York’s skyline?

Were I Trump, I’d frame this question more simply: Don’t you think we should get a say in what they reinvest that money in?

This is the central argument behind Donald Trump’s tariffs. Let’s talk, let’s negotiate, let’s make a deal.

Will any of it work? Well, aren’t U.S. allies Japan and Korea announcing more factories in the United States? How much will Germany — the third largest economy in the world — change when its government is finally in place?

I’m not sure but I do think that lots of other countries want access to scarce American dollars and the prized American market. What will they do to main that relationship? What will they offer?

In other words, Trump is separating the takers from the givers. History, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

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In recent weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about Trump 2.0 and while I wouldn’t do things quite the way he does them, it’s hard not to applaud some of Trump’s recent moves. Indeed President Trump’s tariffs are reshaping the world order and none too soon. It’s more helpful if you

We can focus some other time on why there isn’t really going to be a real resistance to Donald Trump. We all know that the stock market isn’t really a measure of economic health. Peter Thiel once told me that Wall Street is a place where people trade pieces of paper with each other back and forth. Maybe Washington is a place where everyone sues one another. It certainly feels that way.

Of course the deep irony is that Trump achieves a number of progressive goals merely by suggesting tariffs. That Trump could cause all this chaos with the markets with tariffs means a subsequent President Laura Loomer or AOC could cause other chaos. It’s a sign of things to come and it feels very much like the new normal.

Globalization is the movement of goods, capital, ideas and people. Tariffs and tight immigration allow us to reexamine a lot of these relationships. Are they really working for us? Or are they using our dollars — dollars they get from trade — to remake our society?

How you enter a country tells us a lot about your intentions. That, too, is something that’s being discussed in America’s war with MS-13.

Viewed one way, the deportation of a Salvadoran illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a violation of his civil rights. Viewed another, there’s a clear message being communicated that Salvadorans ought to be more helpful in combating the gangs.

And today — almost on queue — a Maryland jury found that Salvadoran national Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez was guilty of murdering Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five.

We can innovate our way out of these sorts of problems. A smart man fixes a problem. A wise man avoids a problem. I’m trying more and more to be a wise man.

We’ve been here before.

Indeed the only other American president to win twice, non-consecutively, was seen below as being too deferential to the British Empire.

So far President Donald Trump hasn’t buckled to China — the Great Britain of its day — and has actually increased his pressure.

Calvin Coolidge knew the importance: “Cheap goods make cheap men.”

Tariffs, if they remain in place long, will hasten a return of the craftsman and the thrifty shopper. There’s a new energy around the estate sale, a new conversation about antiques. Go to any used bookstore and that is where the soul of the town is, especially in Washington D.C.

Visit any American child and you will see cheap plastic stuff. It wasn’t always like this as a cursory view of any family photo album will show.

Why is there this demand to put plastics in everything?

A way to think about the tariffs is to see who is a good friend to America. A lot of countries take from America. They treat its institutions and marketplaces with a sense of entitlement. Now the question will be what can they give us to access the world’s largest market? This is a healthy development and the beginning of a real conversation.

Of course there are all these ways in which the tariffs will help the environment. Do we ever talk about the environmental impact of container ships? Don’t we want people making due with less stuff? The stuff you own ultimately owns you. Simplify, simplify!

“Tariffs will cause a black market.” Oh really? You think you’ll defeat the NSA and the U.S. security establishment? Good luck but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Billionaires facing margin calls? Yeah, not a real problem. How ironic that our billionaire president is making fewer billionaires… and how civically healthy!

Oh the Boomers’ stock portfolio is down? Better sell that house you’ve been hoarding. Blackrock isn’t buying? Guess you are going to make a loss on your paper gains.

An “environmental tariff” is how this’ll likely play out — or the countries will be more helpful. By then they’ll be new political constituencies who will exist independent of China.

And yes, of course I know some of those infant industries which are forming. And yes, I am investing in them.

Did you hear that? That’s an infant industry hollering. Better feed it!

The danger here is immense. Will business interests kill to reverse a tariff? Of course they would. President Trump has survived two known assassination attempts.

And his mention of McKinley on tariffs hides a darker truth. President McKinley didn’t make it. His death established round-the-clock protection of the President by Secret Service and is a curiously understudied figure.

The patriotic thing is to defend the President in his moment. And though I didn’t vote for him, that’s where you’ll find me.