In a lengthy thread on X and in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, former CEA-head-turned-Federal-Reserve-Board-member, Stephen Miran lays out a case for tariffs. Specifically, he says tariffs are not merely a national security tool, as was argued before the Supreme Court during the IEEPA hearing, but are also a clever use of tax policy. Foreigners, as he contends, bear most of the burden or will “in the long run,” so raising tariffs from their previously-low levels to where they are now actually increases national welfare. This is the idea behind so-called “optimal tariff” theory and Miran has argued that not only has that theory been vindicated, but that Trump and the Administration have masterfully demonstrated just how wrong the economics profession has been on this issue.
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