Dan Griswold Uncategorized

My best arguments for why President Trump is wrong about tariffs and trade agreements

Most of my time working in Washington has been devoted to helping my fellow Americans understand the many benefits of keeping the U.S. economy open to the world. That includes openness to trade, international investment, and legal immigration. With a long paper trail of articles, talks, and studies, it should be plain that I don’t support much of what the new Trump administration is trying to implement on trade.

In fact, I wrote three studies or essays in recent years that speak directly to what I would argue are President Trump’s misguided policies on trade. One challenges the president’s idea of imposing “reciprocal tariffs” on U.S. trading partners. In early April, the president is expected to announce plans to raise U.S. tariffs to match those imposed by other countries on what we export. In short, he wants the United States to raise its tariffs on specific goods to match the tariffs that other countries impose on those same goods exported from the United States. For example, if a trading partner imposes a 10 percent tariff on U.S. automobiles (as the European Union does), then the United States will raise its tariff on automobiles imported from that trading partner to 10 percent, up from the 2.5 percent we normally impose.

“Reciprocal tariffs” may sound fair, but if implemented the president’s idea would cost Americans dearly in higher prices for consumer goods, lost export opportunities for producers, and a weaker overall economy. In a 2019 study for the Mercatus Center, “Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: The Danger of Imposing ‘Reciprocal’ Tariff Rates,” I found that implementing reciprocal tariffs against our ten largest trading partners would boomerang back to damage American producers and households. As the abstract of the study states,

Applying reciprocal rates would exponentially complicate the US tariff code, lead to higher duties on a range of imports important to US consumers and producers, and invite retaliation from major trading partners. Specifically, if applied to the United States’ top 10 MFN trading partners, reciprocal tariffs would result in a nearly 10-fold increase in the number of duty lines in the US tariff code. The average US duty on imports from those nations would more than double, from 2.1 to 5.4 percent. Imposing reciprocal duties would ultimately threaten to unravel a postwar global trading system that has reduced tariffs worldwide while protecting US exporters from discrimination.

A more recent essay I wrote for the Cato Institute argues that free trade agreements the United States has signed in recent decades have been good for America’s productive capacity and the living standards of American workers while enhancing our influence around the globe. The August 2024 essay was titled, “How Trade Agreements Have Enhanced the Freedom and Prosperity of Americans,” and was co-written with Clark Packard. The essay provides an antidote to criticism of such trade pacts as the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico and the multilateral agreement among the more than 160 members of the World Trade Organization.  

And finally, to the argument that those trade agreements have caused a decline in living standards for American workers, I showed in a September 2023 essay for Cato that the opposite is true. The average American worker is better off today that 50 years ago by a range of measures, and one of the main reasons is an expanding economy driven by globalization. You can read the essay, “The Misplaced Nostalgia for a Less Globalized Past: The ‘Great Again’ Economy Wasn’t so Great,” at Cato’s “Defending Globalization” website.

You can hear me talk about both of the Cato essays in a just-released podcast, “Global Trade Has Made Us Richer,” hosted by Chelsea Follett of the institute’s Human Progress project. The podcast provides an important fact-check of all the negative things President Trump has been saying about trade agreements and their impact on American workers.

The bottom line in all three of these works is that it is protectionism and higher tariffs that threaten the well-being of American workers, not our freedom to trade with the rest of the world.

Dan Griswold Uncategorized

Why Christians go to church

Can you practice the Christian faith while rarely if ever attending a church service? It’s a question worth asking because I know a few people I consider friends who profess the faith but do not attend church in person. And I believe there are millions of Americans who sincerely identify as Christians who seldom set foot in a church.

My answer to the question is a heavily qualified yes. I can’t say with total confidence that a person who doesn’t go to church can’t be saved, but I also think that non-church-going Christians are misreading their Bible and missing out on the full plate of blessings God intends for his children.

Let’s start with what the Bible says. Throughout the New Testament, it’s assumed that believers are meeting regularly for teaching and worship. When Paul wrote his epistles, he was not just writing to Christians in general, but to specific churches meeting in Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica, and other cities in the Roman world. It’s plain from his letters that believers were gathering regularly for preaching, teaching, prayer, worship, singing, giving, and communion. His letters were full of instructions about how we should conduct ourselves in these regular meetings.

Nowhere is communal worship more obvious than in the sacrament of communion. When Jesus established communion with bread and wine at the Last Supper, he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul instructs us to examine ourselves before taking the bread and the wine. I’m not sure how a Christian can “do this” as the Lord commands if he or she is never in church. Communion by definition is a communal act with other believers, with a minister presiding over the sacrament. It can’t be done alone at home in front of a screen.

The Bible also teaches about accountability and church discipline. The writer of Hebrews (13:17) admonishes us that we should respect the elders of the church as those who must give account: “Obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.” Submitting to the authority of church leaders as they teach the Bible isn’t possible if we are all worshipping on our own outside the visible church.

In other places in the New Testament, the word is even more direct. In Hebrews 10:24-25 we read, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Again, I’m not sure how we can stir one another up to love and good works if we’re neglecting to meet together.

As one of my brothers in the Lord puts it, we are embodied beings who God created to enjoy fellowship in each other’s company. We are part of a larger church body, where we work together in a divine division of labor, each bringing our own talents for the benefit of the church. A Christian who is physically detached from the church body is like a foot or an ear standing on its own.

Zoom and livestreaming played an important role during Covid and can still open up valuable lines of communication–but they cannot substitute for worship and fellowship in the physical presence of others. Sharing an encouraging word, admiring a new-born baby, serving coffee, greeting a stranger – none of these touchpoints in the life of the church are possible if we are sitting home on Sunday morning.

One of the great blessings of public worship is singing together. It’s something that’s becoming less common in our secular age. But what a joy it is to join with 50 or 200 or 500 other people under the same roof singing “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” or one of those other wonderful hymns. As Paul reminds believers in Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

Another great blessing from gathering on a Sunday is that we mix with people we probably wouldn’t normally associate with during the week. In secular society, we may socialize with co-workers, neighbors, or fellow members of a volunteer organization. But throughout the centuries meeting on the Sabbath has been one of society’s great levelers. While churchgoers share a common faith, they come in a wide variety of personality types and backgrounds—trust me on this! Church is a place where the laborer shares a pew with the lawyer, the elderly couple with the single mother, the independent voter with the Trump supporter. In church, we are all equal before the Lord.

No church is perfect. The pews are populated by imperfect people, recovering sinners just like you and me. The important thing is to find a church that preaches the word and practices the faith. They are out there, and not that hard to find if you spend some time searching. If one church doesn’t meet your expectations, visit another until you find one that meets the biblical standard. You and your faith will be rewarded, and God will be pleased.