No matter how wrong The WSJ and other predictions have been on Trump’s tariffs, they never change their opinion. We were told that we would have a severe depression, huge inflation, and empty shelves. All predictions were 100% wrong.

And, when the Ontario government recently ran an ad featuring remarks made by Ronald Reagan in 1987, almost forty years ago, to trash Trump’s trade policies today, and the WSJ seemed to support the narrative, calling Trump’s response to the ad a “tantrum” and saying he’s acting the “king” he claims he isn’t:

Reagan vs. Trump on Tariffs

The MAGA crowd likes to dismiss Ronald Reagan as irrelevant today, but apparently he still matters to President Trump. How else to explain Mr. Trump’s tantrum against Canada after the province of Ontario invoked the Gipper on trade in a television ad?

[snip]

Mr. Trump’s Canada eruption is a good argument for the [SCOTUS] Justices to rein in his tariff power. The President gets angry at a TV ad and imposes on a whim a 10% tax on Americans who buy goods from their northern neighbor. Mr. Trump claims he’s not ‘a king,’ but on tariffs he is acting like one, and without a proper delegation from Congress as the Constitution requires.

It’s as if the WSJ thinks Reagan’s opinion wouldn’t have changed by now. Reagan was very bright. After all, he switched parties. With a huge trade deficit, and the fact that other countries have significant tariffs and restrictions on what they buy from the U.S., why wouldn’t Reagan have a different perspective?

Here are some facts about trade deficits found in a simple internet search:

In 1987, the U.S had a trade deficit of $159.5 billion and a trade surplus of $4 billion with China.

In 2024, the U.S had a trade deficit of $918 billion, which included a deficit with China of $295 billion.

The Federal Reserve recognized the huge problem with the deficit in 1987.

The U.S. has a trade problem. The basic facts are well known. The trade deficit became large as the value of the U.S. dollar increased. This made foreign goods cheap and U.S. goods expensive. U.S. imports rose dramatically and export growth stalled. The U.S. merchandise trade deficit went from $25.5 billion in 1980 to $159.5 billion in 1987. The U.S. has gone from the world’s largest creditor nation to the world’s largest debtor, with nearly $600 billion of foreign debt.

Would Reagan just say “OK” and look the other way as the WSJ proposes Trump do, or would he have changed his policies and views by now?

It is a shame our current Federal Reserve Board also has tunnel vision and trashes Trump’s policies.

Here are some facts about manufacturing jobs:

In 1987, around 17.3% of U.S. jobs were classified as manufacturing jobs. That was around 17.5 million out of a little over 100 million jobs.

By 2024, the percentage of manufacturing jobs had collapsed to around 8% of all jobs, and that meant we only had 12.8 million manufacturing jobs.

Meanwhile, the population of the U.S grew from 242 million in 1987 to around 340 million in 2024.

So, to build products for 98 million more people, we had 4.7 million fewer people doing the job.

Can anyone spot the huge problem that might cause us to be so dependent on other countries for our goods, especially China? Trump sees the problem. I am sure Reagan would have also recognized the potential disaster.

It is a shame that Obama and Biden didn’t have the vision to see the problem.

In June of 2016, as Obama was campaigning for Hillary, he essentially gave up on getting manufacturing jobs back:

‘What magic wand do you have?’

In June 2016, President Obama, in a town hall in Elkhart, Indiana, asserted that American manufacturing was merely a thing of the past.

When asked by an audience member why blue-collar jobs continue to disappear, the 44th President admitted that good-paying jobs in America were moving overseas under his watch.  Mr. Obama asserted that ‘some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back.’

Biden and the Democrats were also willing to destroy the tens of millions of jobs directly and indirectly related to oil, coal, and natural gas as they catered to green pushers and pretended they could control the climate. They didn’t care what harm their policies caused to the poor and middle classes as prices skyrocketed. These are dangerous and worthless politicians, bureaucrats, and journalists whose policies never change no matter what the results and circumstances are.

For example: 

When China causes a virus and holds us hostage for medical supplies, they don’t work as hard as they can to support American manufacturing and focus on restoring American drug-making.

When China holds the U.S. and the world hostage on rare earth minerals, they say that is okay.

When college prices skyrocket, they just throw more money at them.

When dire climate predictions are 100% wrong, they don’t care.

When Obamacare causes massive price spikes, they just increase the subsidies. 

When politicians refuse to enforce the border, they say all the illegals can stay.

When socialism and communism policies fail wherever they are tried, they pretend that they are great for the people.

When tax rate cuts help raise economic growth and raise more revenue for the government, they pretend that isn’t true.

Thankfully, we have Trump as president who knows how to adapt to circumstances and get results instead of Obama, Biden, or Harris, who supported policies no matter how destructive they were.

Image from Grok.