Here’s a funny thing, though, Claire: Despite all the chaos of the Trump Restoration, life in America is going on much as usual. Like you, I’m politically engaged. I pay attention to the storm and strife of American politics. But honestly, it makes very little difference to me personally. Whatever meltdown is happening in DC,I can hit the fitness center, or while away an afternoon reading a good book, or put together a good dinner for me and my wonderful wife. And why? Because America is enormously bigger than Trump or any other president.
Have you remained in touch with this American reality? I wonder whether living in Turkey and France has made you feel, perhaps not consciously, less an American. I know how that sounds, and far be it from me to question your patriotism, Claire—that’s not at all what I’m intimating. My own impression of you, admittedly based on an online relationship, is that your idea of America is intellectual. Mine is not. And there’s where we differ.
Did that for starters. Then in early January finished selling our buy-and-hold-“forever” portfolio of index funds, exchanged dollars, and put proceeds in an inflation-protected treasury note equivalent in a currency that is up 9% against the dollar since then. Lucky? Sure, and perhaps even temporary, but not all that surprising when you are going all-in against a malevolent buffoon whose economic wisdom bankrupts casinos.
Yeah I don’t do finance. But that sounds smart. The bull market so long enduring now has made no sense to me from an observer’s and an amateur’s standpoint. These are unequivocally bearish times.
The extended bull market was a key part of my decision, and virtually everything I had read suggested Trump wanted to deflate the dollar. I’m strictly an amateur too, but it was an easy decision for an expat like me because everything seemed to be pointing in the same direction—the probable impact of tariffs on the economy, the probable impact of tariffs on inflation, and Trump’s opinion about the dollar being overvalued.
Yeah also the approaching debt calamity, government dysfunction and geopolitical crises. And interest rates high after decades of it being a mistake to suppress them. I have no money in the stock market and I was an English major in college. I know scant about markets but I know a little about economics, America’s fiscal issues, and foreign policy and I just see huge financial headwinds.
Thank you for a sharp, entertaining, and deeply worrying piece—equal parts alarm bell and dark comedy.
Like the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade, where valor met miscommunication and led to devastating loss, the current economic maneuvers echo a similar descent into disorder. The implementation of sweeping tariffs has introduced a level of unpredictability that leaves businesses and consumers alike in a state of uncertainty. While the intention may have been to bolster domestic industries, the reality is a landscape marred by increased costs, disrupted supply chains, and strained international relations. The initial rallying cries for economic nationalism have given way to concerns over inflation and recession, reminiscent of past economic missteps.
Critics argue that such protectionist policies are necessary to safeguard national interests and revitalize manufacturing. However, the evidence suggests that these measures may be counterproductive, leading to job losses in sectors reliant on global trade and investment. The retaliatory actions from trade partners further exacerbate the situation, creating a cycle of economic retaliation that benefits no one. The historical parallels are striking, as past attempts at economic isolationism have often resulted in unintended consequences and long-term damage to the very industries they aimed to protect.
In the end, much like the Light Brigade's charge into the valley of death, the current trajectory appears to be one of self-inflicted harm, driven by a combination of miscalculation and rigid adherence to ideology. The path forward requires a reassessment of strategies, informed by historical lessons and a commitment to pragmatic policymaking. Only then can we hope to navigate away from the precipice and towards a more stable and prosperous economic future.
Trump’s on again off again tariffs are already bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Three large pharmaceutical companies, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and Eli Lilly have committed to construct massive, new American manufacturing plants. See,
While Claire is right to wonder where the constituent components (the term of art for these components is active pharmaceutical ingredients for the therapeutic elements and excipients for the non-active components) will come from, Novartis, in particular, has promised that many of its most important drugs will be produced end to end in the United States.
This alone is a big win, but it suggests another question. Why did the United States ever permit so many of the medicines and the key components of these medicines to be produced outside of our country and frequently by adversaries?
The answer is that it was cheaper and in the myopic eyes of neoliberals, cheaper is always better; so much better in fact that it’s the only thing that matters.
Thanks to the neoliberals and their kissing cousins, the globalists, the United States can’t make its own medicines, it can’t make its own drones, it can’t build its own ships, it can’t make its own solar panels, it can’t make the blades for its own windmills and it can’t make many of the most advanced microchips.
The American military relies on China for critical components used in ammunition, for heat sensors used on armored vehicles, for aluminum castings used on tanks, for flat panel displays used in cockpits and for rare earths used in almost everything. China even sells the United States most of the boots that American service men and women wear in combat.
Of course all of this is dangerous and absurd but it is also scandalous. The fact that the United States relies on China to produce the weapons that might someday be used against China is more scandalous by a country mile than anything Trump has ever done.
Where should we lay the blame for the vulnerable position that we find ourselves in? The answer is simple, it’s the neoliberal philosophy adopted by both American political parties in the early part of this century that has failed and failed miserably.
Superimpose these failures on the fact that neoliberalism is the proximate cause for the destruction of huge swaths of the American heartland and it becomes apparent that Claire is looking for villains in all the wrong places.
Trump’s policies may or may not fix what the neoliberals have destroyed. It’s unclear whether he will be able to stick to a consistent policy long enough to find out. What is clear is that tinkering around the edges of the problem won’t get the job done. Unless neoliberalism is banished, we are in for a heap of trouble. In his own oafish way, Trump is doing our nation a tremendous favor by taking all the heat that comes from trying to tear down a failing global system.
Meanwhile, in other news, France is blocking closer EU defense cooperation with the UK in a dispute over fishing rights. The EU’s new foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas deadpanned, “I’m surprised how important the fish are given the security situation.”
Apparently “the fish” are as important to President Macron as rare earths are to President Trump.
I'm afraid I'm going with "talk is cheap" on those big pharma commitments (thanks for the links). Firms have been making big noises about their (real) investment plans for the US in recent months, plausibly to stay on the right side of Trump admin. But I can't see any signs that investment that *would have gone elsewhere* is coming to the US - can you?
When non-US investment and capacity actually falls off, that would be stronger evidence.
Tom, lots of companies in various industries are making all sorts of promises about moving production to the United States in response to Trump’s tariff threats. Some of these promises might be true, some are probably lies designed to placate the President and some might represent plans the companies had anyway having nothing to do with the tariffs.
I believe that the claims of the pharmaceutical companies are true for a very simple reason. Every significant pharmaceutical company in the world generates most of its profits selling its products in the American market. Because of high and mostly unregulated (this changed slightly last year) prices charged for its drugs, the American market is dramatically more important to Pharma than the European market, Middle Eastern market or Asian markets.
By far, the most expensive element of developing a drug is R&D; manufacturing the drug, costs a pittance by comparison. Marketing costs are high too, but not that high.
When these companies price their drugs in the United States they calculate what to charge by the need to recoup both the R&D costs and the production costs. Of course, other factors come in to play including whether competitors have products with a similar mechanism of action.
Because their American profits are so high, they can price their products much lower in European, Asian and Middle Eastern markets. These companies are happy enough to charge enough to make a profit based on production costs in these markets. They have little choice because what they can charge is highly regulated in almost every market outside of the United States.
But for the profit these companies generate in the U.S. many of the pharmaceutical products that help hundreds of millions of people throughout the world would never have seen the light of day. In effect, Americans are subsidizing the costs of developing pharmaceuticals for the entire world.
Because the American market is so much more important to the pharmaceutical industry than any other market, their willingness to relocate even more R&D (much of it is already here and in the UK) and manufacturing is highly believable. Both Republicans and Democrats are offended by American drug prices that are so much higher than in other nations and they scrutinize the industry with a fine tooth comb.
For all of these reasons, when Eli Lilly, Novartis and J&J say they are expanding in the United States, I believe them. The U.S. is simply too important to them to piss off Trump or any other American politician.
As an aside, let me mention one more tidbit that implicates your country. The fact that pharmaceutical prices are so much higher in the United States than in other places is a double-edged sword. Because of high American prices, many Americans travel to Mexico or Canada to procure their medicines because the prices charged there are so much lower. On the other hand, I have met numerous very wealthy UK citizens who travel to the United States to get medical care because the medicines that they need (usually newer and very high priced medicines) are simply unavailable in the UK. NHS doctors are told to prescribe lower-priced but less effective alternatives. Those wealthy enough to afford it simply opt out of the British health care system and pay out of pocket for their health care and their medicines in the United States.
Many prominent American hospitals have special programs designed to cater to wealthy Europeans, Canadians, etc who are willing to pay out of pocket for care and medicines that they can’t get in their own country because their governments (including your government) have decided it’s too expensive. Here’s just one example but I could provide many more. See,
Thanks Wigwag. Obviously you know much more about Pharma market mechanics than I do and the rationale makes sense to me - though I still think it leaves any effects of threatened or actual new tariffs rather on the margins?
Drug prices and social healthcare... A very big topic indeed. One slight addendum/correction: NHS isn't a monopoly provider and there is plenty of private healthcare here too, so if you have money or occupational insurance (many employers provide this for many of their staff... Even I get some!) you can "go private". Whether you can get the latest treatments is then down to regulatory approval (distinct from NHS listing) but finally literal availability. I think the risk that the NHS *won't* list a new expensive treatment adds friction there, but in principal you can get hold of any approved drug with a private prescription.
Tom, let me give you one more example that pertains to medical devices, not pharmaceuticals. Many wealthy Canadians and Brits come to the United States to get imaged with MRIs. The reason is the wait is often very long in the UK and Canada.
The UK has 8.6 MRI machines per million residents. Canada has 10.8 MRI machines per million residents. The United States has 38 MRI machines per million residents.
If my doctor prescribes an MRI I can usually get one within a day or two. Patients that I know in Canada often have to wait weeks or even months.
What’s the end result of all of this? In the United States (where health care costs are out of control) tens of thousands of MRIs are done when a simple X-Ray or Cat Scan would have gotten the job done. In the UK and Canada, thousands of patients who could have benefited from the diagnostic capabilities of an MRI, are instead forced to rely on inferior diagnostic tools.
In your country, patients often don’t know that they’re getting inferior care. Their NHS doctor simply tells them that they need an X-Ray or a Cat Scan while knowing that it would be far better for that particular patient to get an MRI. The physician is simply precluded from being honest with the patient.
In my country, the rationing is done by the insurance companies not the doctors. The physician may prescribe an MRI but the insurance company informs the patient (and physician) that they don’t think it’s necessary and won’t pay for it. Well insured American patients rarely have this problem. Poorly insured patients like those on Obama-Care plans or Medicare-Advantage plans have this problem all the time.
Sorry "precluded from being honest" is not correct. Nobody has to pretend there aren't better options. I've had doctors tell me that ideally we'd do X but that will take too long so we'll do Y. (And sometimes hint that the best answer would be to go private).
NHS is underresourced and under pressure, everyone admits this; it's not some kind of authoritarian conspiracy...
It really isn't great, but overintervention has downsides too. Which unfortunately gives nutters like RFK an "in"...
Who knows where we (the world, I'm not American) will be in six months? But let's see where we are after 2 1/2 months.
The prelude was tariffs against Canada and Mexico. Then we had massive tariffs against the world. Then we had a reduction (but not a complete cancellation) of those tariffs, with their ultimate form contingent on nation-to-nation negotiation, except against China, where we still just have escalation.
So America has launched tariff negotiations on three fronts. Its North American neighbors are a category by themselves. So is China. And then you have everyone else.
It makes geopolitical sense. The American nationalists of Trump 2.0 want to assert themselves in their geographic neighborhood, and they see China as their only real rival globally. So Canada, Mexico, and China receive special attention. For everyone else, all you have to care about are genuinely bilateral issues, and where you stand on the rivalry between America and China.
How intense that rivalry will become, and by what means it will be pursued, is unclear to me. I don't think Trump cares about China's political system, so democracy crusading won't be a prominent part of it while he's in charge. It'll just be about economics and national security. What are America's main ongoing grievances against China - spying, IP theft, trade balance, currency manipulation? Add to that the concern that China will outright surpass America, technologically and geopolitically, and it's hard to see deep real peace breaking out any time soon.
Everything else - the troubles of American importers, the vagaries of stocks and bonds, the cost of living for ordinary Americans - is going to be secondary, for those who want to see America on top. So I guess the political opposition to Trump will have to make a choice. Will they develop an alternative national strategy for competing with China, or will they say China can be a friend, there's no need for rivalry at all? Hasan Piker, a Turkish-American influencer from the socialist wing of the Democrats, is making an effort to convey the Chinese perspective to his audience, saying that what America should really do, is emulate Chinese domestic policy. I guess it sounds extreme to an older generation, but I feel like that's the real political battle in Generation Z at least - right-wing American nationalism, or American democratic socialism.
I thought it was...then it was so realistic, I thought, "holy crap, it IS real." In my defense, I live in Europe and often find things out the next morning. But when I got to Teddie and The Cruzer, I realized "Ted would never admit those things, even though they're true."
Claire, I see you put the word "impeach" in one of the captions, but seriously, how can we stop him? With this Congress, impeachment is surely a non-starter. He should be locked up in jail, but after what we witnessed last year, that's an impossibility, too.
Yeah forget about impeachment let alone putting him in jail. If you read my blog you will find the secret to dislodging his grasp consists in the mass “seduction” of an audience. Because Trump is a great seducer what we need is a seducer worthy of him to lure his followers and himself away from power. I don’t care how crazy you think this is.
Jay, I don't think your idea is crazy. We're on the same wavelength. Trump has been a master of the Mythic Image, the seducer, as you call him. To dislodge him, we do indeed need someone who is a greater seducer, someone with a more powerful Mythic Image. Who could that be? It's not Bernie, AOC, Buttigieg, Newsom, Pritzker, Whitmer, Shapiro, Walz, Beshears, or any of the current crop. It will be someone new and exciting who hasn't popped up on the national scene yet. Let's be alert to welcome and empower that new person, yes, our savior.
It starts with the culture. I intend to make of myself that seducer and we all can and should make ourselves seducers and seductresses— to lure everyone away from all the fake men and poor leaders and misogynists in the world! I’ll be damned if the root of the whole crisis is that men do not respect women like they used to. Meaning the love of women is the ticket. What DH Laurence did for the British novel or what Richard Wagner did to German culture, I think America just needs its Laurence, it’s Wagner or it’s Byron and Trump will be so yesterday in no less than a few years. You have no idea. We need every day to stage a cultural moral metaethical backlash so powerful it won’t make a difference whether the West so to speak lost its religion. Because we will have made goodness an aesthetic value and moral ideal in itself. Rescuing it from the glamorization of badness and cruelty.
I do have to ask this, though. Since when have Democrats and progressives—but I repeat myself—been free trade warriors? Do they have some secret, kinder and gentler, trade policy that defends American jobs without (a) imposing tariffs or (b) opposing tariffs? Of course they don't. If Trump is economically challenged, the comrades are economically illiterate.
You don't repeat yourself, Thomas. You can Google "Biden tariff rates" if you want to see what Democratic policy on tariffs was like, in practice, until this administration took over, and you can also check what it was like under other Democratic administrations (recall President Obama's keen interest in the TPP, for example) going back to FDR (and FDR's 1934 Reciprocal Tariff Act might surprise you!).
It might be worth investing some of your valuable time time to better understand the dynamics of the political opposition, to have a more comprehensive understanding of US politics - Lord knows I've had to put in countless hours to understand what the modern GOP has become. We could start with the fact that the Bernie Sanders progressive "democratic socialist" faction is loosely allied to Liz Warren's more technocratic reformist alliance (and recall she called herself "a capitalist to her bones" an odd declaration, you must admit, for a "comrade").
And these relatively small wings are distinct, in turn, from a much larger, dispersed constellation of centrist Democrats whose numbers include the Senate and House leadership (now and traditionally) along with folks like Chris Coons, Jared Golden, Abigail Spanberger, Michael Bennett, Jacky Rosen, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Adam Schiff, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Kaine, and others. The trend by red state voters in recent years to eschew split-ticket voting and fire virtually all Blue Dog senators (Joe Manchin, Sherrod Brown, Heidi Heitkampf, Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill, etc.) no matter how capable (or, it must be said, no matter how *unwoke*) doesn't mean there isn't a real dynamic range and authentic conversations about the future direction of the Democratic Party, as you might see in the discussion around Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's Abundance book.
Matt Yglesias's Slow Boring Substack is another place where you might find policy-oriented centrist Democrats with a keen interest in policy to improve the country for the benefit of all its citizens (and I repeat: there is an earnest interest here in improving life for *all* its citizens. "I am your vengeance" isn't the reigning sentiment).
Feel free to ask any questions if you are curious about the US left.
Dunno about the politicians, but many Democratic voters claim to like capitalism pretty well, as long as it's well-regulated. To which I might reply, "Well, about that..."
But when the effective choice isn't between "fettered capitalism" and genuinely free trade, and instead between poorly-regulated trade and better-regulated trade, the better-regulated is, well, better by comparison.
Free trade in all things remains unappealing to most voters, including the ones who say they're for it (what they really might be for is some sort of prosperity gospel that's distinct from actual free trade). But trade can be freer or less-free, with the restrictions on it better or worse. Given those choices, yes, Democrats can be more appealing to free-traders than Buchananite arsonists.
There are valid non-economic reasons for immigration controls, e.g. national security. You might also pause to reflect on the fact that, as the Danes eventually realized, a nation can have either a comprehensive welfare state or a liberal immigration policy—but not both. And the politics of identity, so beloved of the progressive Left, discourages the assimilation of immigrants.
All reasonable concerns in context. And similarly, non-economic reasons to protect certain strategic industries or block some foreign imports to avoid critical infrastructure exposure. Regulation is never really far away in a modern state.
I like free trade, but I'm not like most voters, and have got to live with that.
And I'm not sure it's helpful to call *any* degree of "well-regulated capitalism" indistinguishable from "state socialism". It seems to me there's a meaningful difference between, say, Switzerland and the Netherlands and what most people mean by "socialism". (Switzerland and the Netherlands are also meaningfully different from each other, obviously, but still governance neighbors compared to the rest of the world.)
The modern state seems doomed to be an insurance firm with a military attached. Voters – even those who swear up and down that they don't – *want* some degree of social insurance, and, in a representative government, will get some. As Milton Friedman said in "Neo-Liberalism and its Prospects", we can expect citizens in a representative to successfully petition the state "to relieve acute misery and distress" to some degree. There are better and worse ways for the state to respond, and I still think "better" errs on the side of modest. Heck, I still think Uncle Milt's summary is about the least-bad governance proposition out there:
I seem to recall our economic prospects looking a hell of a lot better under the “comrades” 6 months ago than they do right now. Real men admit it when they make a terrible mistake. They don’t try to excuse themselves by going off on irrelevant tangents about Bernie Sanders or the “comrades.” You fucked up!
That’s a low blow bro. Trying to trigger Tom’s masculinity. That’s like you trying to convince me I’m crazy. Tom is the Dr Johnson and Jonathan Swift of this platform. You don’t want to think about messing with him any less than me. You should also read his short-stories. He’s a serious could-be master. Love the name-change by the way. Wonder where that came from.
I may be cocky. But at least I’m not little. Tom has his moments. Though I think he can be brutalized. The pen is mightier than the sword. And my verbal jiu jitsu renders him powerless.
When you’re, you’re right Jay (about the name that is). I’m always open to good advice. Even from a cocky little punk. As for Tom, I’m sure his short stories are dynamite (not a big fan of that particular medium myself). But his political commentary is a different story. Though you may have noticed that in the next post I acknowledged that perhaps I’ve brutalized him enough and should maybe let him enjoy his senescence.
I don’t think you can “brutalize” a Vietnam veteran. You’re cockier than I am and still a loser. — I’m kidding, and I think you’re an ok writer with the flourish at the end there. Tom is also a wonderful pundit. I laugh my head off at half his posts.
That’s such a weak and intellectually dishonest response that it makes me wonder if you’re even worthy of my derision. Maybe I should save my belligerence for someone more formidable and stop beating up on an old man.
You truly must be exhausted. I can’t imagine how you find time to research so thoroughly and then craft such thoughtful assessments. I and many others are in your debt.
Here’s a funny thing, though, Claire: Despite all the chaos of the Trump Restoration, life in America is going on much as usual. Like you, I’m politically engaged. I pay attention to the storm and strife of American politics. But honestly, it makes very little difference to me personally. Whatever meltdown is happening in DC,I can hit the fitness center, or while away an afternoon reading a good book, or put together a good dinner for me and my wonderful wife. And why? Because America is enormously bigger than Trump or any other president.
Have you remained in touch with this American reality? I wonder whether living in Turkey and France has made you feel, perhaps not consciously, less an American. I know how that sounds, and far be it from me to question your patriotism, Claire—that’s not at all what I’m intimating. My own impression of you, admittedly based on an online relationship, is that your idea of America is intellectual. Mine is not. And there’s where we differ.
Here's a number that doesn't get around as much as it should:
Percentage of total Chinese exports that go to the USA:
FIFTEEN PERCENT.
Look it up, Navarro-istas.
Well, duh.
The real "n" word is nihilism. Trump are him.
Whoever didn’t pick “move to another country” is too dumb to read this Substack?
Did that for starters. Then in early January finished selling our buy-and-hold-“forever” portfolio of index funds, exchanged dollars, and put proceeds in an inflation-protected treasury note equivalent in a currency that is up 9% against the dollar since then. Lucky? Sure, and perhaps even temporary, but not all that surprising when you are going all-in against a malevolent buffoon whose economic wisdom bankrupts casinos.
Yeah I don’t do finance. But that sounds smart. The bull market so long enduring now has made no sense to me from an observer’s and an amateur’s standpoint. These are unequivocally bearish times.
The extended bull market was a key part of my decision, and virtually everything I had read suggested Trump wanted to deflate the dollar. I’m strictly an amateur too, but it was an easy decision for an expat like me because everything seemed to be pointing in the same direction—the probable impact of tariffs on the economy, the probable impact of tariffs on inflation, and Trump’s opinion about the dollar being overvalued.
Yeah also the approaching debt calamity, government dysfunction and geopolitical crises. And interest rates high after decades of it being a mistake to suppress them. I have no money in the stock market and I was an English major in college. I know scant about markets but I know a little about economics, America’s fiscal issues, and foreign policy and I just see huge financial headwinds.
Thank you for a sharp, entertaining, and deeply worrying piece—equal parts alarm bell and dark comedy.
Like the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade, where valor met miscommunication and led to devastating loss, the current economic maneuvers echo a similar descent into disorder. The implementation of sweeping tariffs has introduced a level of unpredictability that leaves businesses and consumers alike in a state of uncertainty. While the intention may have been to bolster domestic industries, the reality is a landscape marred by increased costs, disrupted supply chains, and strained international relations. The initial rallying cries for economic nationalism have given way to concerns over inflation and recession, reminiscent of past economic missteps.
Critics argue that such protectionist policies are necessary to safeguard national interests and revitalize manufacturing. However, the evidence suggests that these measures may be counterproductive, leading to job losses in sectors reliant on global trade and investment. The retaliatory actions from trade partners further exacerbate the situation, creating a cycle of economic retaliation that benefits no one. The historical parallels are striking, as past attempts at economic isolationism have often resulted in unintended consequences and long-term damage to the very industries they aimed to protect.
In the end, much like the Light Brigade's charge into the valley of death, the current trajectory appears to be one of self-inflicted harm, driven by a combination of miscalculation and rigid adherence to ideology. The path forward requires a reassessment of strategies, informed by historical lessons and a commitment to pragmatic policymaking. Only then can we hope to navigate away from the precipice and towards a more stable and prosperous economic future.
Delusion and incompetence at the wheel of entire planet.
America so stupid.
Trump’s on again off again tariffs are already bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Three large pharmaceutical companies, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and Eli Lilly have committed to construct massive, new American manufacturing plants. See,
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/following-lilly-and-jj-novartis-unveils-23b-investment-beef-us-manufacturing-rd
and
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/pfizer-could-shift-overseas-production-us-if-trumps-pharma-tariffs-take-hold-ceo-says
While Claire is right to wonder where the constituent components (the term of art for these components is active pharmaceutical ingredients for the therapeutic elements and excipients for the non-active components) will come from, Novartis, in particular, has promised that many of its most important drugs will be produced end to end in the United States.
This alone is a big win, but it suggests another question. Why did the United States ever permit so many of the medicines and the key components of these medicines to be produced outside of our country and frequently by adversaries?
The answer is that it was cheaper and in the myopic eyes of neoliberals, cheaper is always better; so much better in fact that it’s the only thing that matters.
Thanks to the neoliberals and their kissing cousins, the globalists, the United States can’t make its own medicines, it can’t make its own drones, it can’t build its own ships, it can’t make its own solar panels, it can’t make the blades for its own windmills and it can’t make many of the most advanced microchips.
The American military relies on China for critical components used in ammunition, for heat sensors used on armored vehicles, for aluminum castings used on tanks, for flat panel displays used in cockpits and for rare earths used in almost everything. China even sells the United States most of the boots that American service men and women wear in combat.
Of course all of this is dangerous and absurd but it is also scandalous. The fact that the United States relies on China to produce the weapons that might someday be used against China is more scandalous by a country mile than anything Trump has ever done.
Where should we lay the blame for the vulnerable position that we find ourselves in? The answer is simple, it’s the neoliberal philosophy adopted by both American political parties in the early part of this century that has failed and failed miserably.
Superimpose these failures on the fact that neoliberalism is the proximate cause for the destruction of huge swaths of the American heartland and it becomes apparent that Claire is looking for villains in all the wrong places.
Trump’s policies may or may not fix what the neoliberals have destroyed. It’s unclear whether he will be able to stick to a consistent policy long enough to find out. What is clear is that tinkering around the edges of the problem won’t get the job done. Unless neoliberalism is banished, we are in for a heap of trouble. In his own oafish way, Trump is doing our nation a tremendous favor by taking all the heat that comes from trying to tear down a failing global system.
Meanwhile, in other news, France is blocking closer EU defense cooperation with the UK in a dispute over fishing rights. The EU’s new foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas deadpanned, “I’m surprised how important the fish are given the security situation.”
Apparently “the fish” are as important to President Macron as rare earths are to President Trump.
Could the French be any more ridiculous?
I'm afraid I'm going with "talk is cheap" on those big pharma commitments (thanks for the links). Firms have been making big noises about their (real) investment plans for the US in recent months, plausibly to stay on the right side of Trump admin. But I can't see any signs that investment that *would have gone elsewhere* is coming to the US - can you?
When non-US investment and capacity actually falls off, that would be stronger evidence.
Tom, lots of companies in various industries are making all sorts of promises about moving production to the United States in response to Trump’s tariff threats. Some of these promises might be true, some are probably lies designed to placate the President and some might represent plans the companies had anyway having nothing to do with the tariffs.
I believe that the claims of the pharmaceutical companies are true for a very simple reason. Every significant pharmaceutical company in the world generates most of its profits selling its products in the American market. Because of high and mostly unregulated (this changed slightly last year) prices charged for its drugs, the American market is dramatically more important to Pharma than the European market, Middle Eastern market or Asian markets.
By far, the most expensive element of developing a drug is R&D; manufacturing the drug, costs a pittance by comparison. Marketing costs are high too, but not that high.
When these companies price their drugs in the United States they calculate what to charge by the need to recoup both the R&D costs and the production costs. Of course, other factors come in to play including whether competitors have products with a similar mechanism of action.
Because their American profits are so high, they can price their products much lower in European, Asian and Middle Eastern markets. These companies are happy enough to charge enough to make a profit based on production costs in these markets. They have little choice because what they can charge is highly regulated in almost every market outside of the United States.
But for the profit these companies generate in the U.S. many of the pharmaceutical products that help hundreds of millions of people throughout the world would never have seen the light of day. In effect, Americans are subsidizing the costs of developing pharmaceuticals for the entire world.
Because the American market is so much more important to the pharmaceutical industry than any other market, their willingness to relocate even more R&D (much of it is already here and in the UK) and manufacturing is highly believable. Both Republicans and Democrats are offended by American drug prices that are so much higher than in other nations and they scrutinize the industry with a fine tooth comb.
For all of these reasons, when Eli Lilly, Novartis and J&J say they are expanding in the United States, I believe them. The U.S. is simply too important to them to piss off Trump or any other American politician.
As an aside, let me mention one more tidbit that implicates your country. The fact that pharmaceutical prices are so much higher in the United States than in other places is a double-edged sword. Because of high American prices, many Americans travel to Mexico or Canada to procure their medicines because the prices charged there are so much lower. On the other hand, I have met numerous very wealthy UK citizens who travel to the United States to get medical care because the medicines that they need (usually newer and very high priced medicines) are simply unavailable in the UK. NHS doctors are told to prescribe lower-priced but less effective alternatives. Those wealthy enough to afford it simply opt out of the British health care system and pay out of pocket for their health care and their medicines in the United States.
Many prominent American hospitals have special programs designed to cater to wealthy Europeans, Canadians, etc who are willing to pay out of pocket for care and medicines that they can’t get in their own country because their governments (including your government) have decided it’s too expensive. Here’s just one example but I could provide many more. See,
https://www.hss.edu/international-patient-services.asp
The whole system needs fixing but it won’t be fixed any time soon.
Thanks Wigwag. Obviously you know much more about Pharma market mechanics than I do and the rationale makes sense to me - though I still think it leaves any effects of threatened or actual new tariffs rather on the margins?
Drug prices and social healthcare... A very big topic indeed. One slight addendum/correction: NHS isn't a monopoly provider and there is plenty of private healthcare here too, so if you have money or occupational insurance (many employers provide this for many of their staff... Even I get some!) you can "go private". Whether you can get the latest treatments is then down to regulatory approval (distinct from NHS listing) but finally literal availability. I think the risk that the NHS *won't* list a new expensive treatment adds friction there, but in principal you can get hold of any approved drug with a private prescription.
Tom, let me give you one more example that pertains to medical devices, not pharmaceuticals. Many wealthy Canadians and Brits come to the United States to get imaged with MRIs. The reason is the wait is often very long in the UK and Canada.
The UK has 8.6 MRI machines per million residents. Canada has 10.8 MRI machines per million residents. The United States has 38 MRI machines per million residents.
If my doctor prescribes an MRI I can usually get one within a day or two. Patients that I know in Canada often have to wait weeks or even months.
What’s the end result of all of this? In the United States (where health care costs are out of control) tens of thousands of MRIs are done when a simple X-Ray or Cat Scan would have gotten the job done. In the UK and Canada, thousands of patients who could have benefited from the diagnostic capabilities of an MRI, are instead forced to rely on inferior diagnostic tools.
In your country, patients often don’t know that they’re getting inferior care. Their NHS doctor simply tells them that they need an X-Ray or a Cat Scan while knowing that it would be far better for that particular patient to get an MRI. The physician is simply precluded from being honest with the patient.
In my country, the rationing is done by the insurance companies not the doctors. The physician may prescribe an MRI but the insurance company informs the patient (and physician) that they don’t think it’s necessary and won’t pay for it. Well insured American patients rarely have this problem. Poorly insured patients like those on Obama-Care plans or Medicare-Advantage plans have this problem all the time.
As I said earlier, it’s a mess.
Sorry "precluded from being honest" is not correct. Nobody has to pretend there aren't better options. I've had doctors tell me that ideally we'd do X but that will take too long so we'll do Y. (And sometimes hint that the best answer would be to go private).
NHS is underresourced and under pressure, everyone admits this; it's not some kind of authoritarian conspiracy...
It really isn't great, but overintervention has downsides too. Which unfortunately gives nutters like RFK an "in"...
100% agree on the Mess.
To be fair the fish seem equally important to the US if they won’t drop the dispute to get closer cooperation with Europe. ?
I’m not sure what you mean.
My bad. I read US.
Who knows where we (the world, I'm not American) will be in six months? But let's see where we are after 2 1/2 months.
The prelude was tariffs against Canada and Mexico. Then we had massive tariffs against the world. Then we had a reduction (but not a complete cancellation) of those tariffs, with their ultimate form contingent on nation-to-nation negotiation, except against China, where we still just have escalation.
So America has launched tariff negotiations on three fronts. Its North American neighbors are a category by themselves. So is China. And then you have everyone else.
It makes geopolitical sense. The American nationalists of Trump 2.0 want to assert themselves in their geographic neighborhood, and they see China as their only real rival globally. So Canada, Mexico, and China receive special attention. For everyone else, all you have to care about are genuinely bilateral issues, and where you stand on the rivalry between America and China.
How intense that rivalry will become, and by what means it will be pursued, is unclear to me. I don't think Trump cares about China's political system, so democracy crusading won't be a prominent part of it while he's in charge. It'll just be about economics and national security. What are America's main ongoing grievances against China - spying, IP theft, trade balance, currency manipulation? Add to that the concern that China will outright surpass America, technologically and geopolitically, and it's hard to see deep real peace breaking out any time soon.
Everything else - the troubles of American importers, the vagaries of stocks and bonds, the cost of living for ordinary Americans - is going to be secondary, for those who want to see America on top. So I guess the political opposition to Trump will have to make a choice. Will they develop an alternative national strategy for competing with China, or will they say China can be a friend, there's no need for rivalry at all? Hasan Piker, a Turkish-American influencer from the socialist wing of the Democrats, is making an effort to convey the Chinese perspective to his audience, saying that what America should really do, is emulate Chinese domestic policy. I guess it sounds extreme to an older generation, but I feel like that's the real political battle in Generation Z at least - right-wing American nationalism, or American democratic socialism.
Since I couldn't comment on the other post (the satire)--dammit Claire! You had me going until I got to the Ted Cruz part!
I kept saying - this is satire, right? RIGHT?? Because it didn't sound all the far fetched given who was being written about.
I thought it was...then it was so realistic, I thought, "holy crap, it IS real." In my defense, I live in Europe and often find things out the next morning. But when I got to Teddie and The Cruzer, I realized "Ted would never admit those things, even though they're true."
Claire, I see you put the word "impeach" in one of the captions, but seriously, how can we stop him? With this Congress, impeachment is surely a non-starter. He should be locked up in jail, but after what we witnessed last year, that's an impossibility, too.
Yeah forget about impeachment let alone putting him in jail. If you read my blog you will find the secret to dislodging his grasp consists in the mass “seduction” of an audience. Because Trump is a great seducer what we need is a seducer worthy of him to lure his followers and himself away from power. I don’t care how crazy you think this is.
Jay, I don't think your idea is crazy. We're on the same wavelength. Trump has been a master of the Mythic Image, the seducer, as you call him. To dislodge him, we do indeed need someone who is a greater seducer, someone with a more powerful Mythic Image. Who could that be? It's not Bernie, AOC, Buttigieg, Newsom, Pritzker, Whitmer, Shapiro, Walz, Beshears, or any of the current crop. It will be someone new and exciting who hasn't popped up on the national scene yet. Let's be alert to welcome and empower that new person, yes, our savior.
It starts with the culture. I intend to make of myself that seducer and we all can and should make ourselves seducers and seductresses— to lure everyone away from all the fake men and poor leaders and misogynists in the world! I’ll be damned if the root of the whole crisis is that men do not respect women like they used to. Meaning the love of women is the ticket. What DH Laurence did for the British novel or what Richard Wagner did to German culture, I think America just needs its Laurence, it’s Wagner or it’s Byron and Trump will be so yesterday in no less than a few years. You have no idea. We need every day to stage a cultural moral metaethical backlash so powerful it won’t make a difference whether the West so to speak lost its religion. Because we will have made goodness an aesthetic value and moral ideal in itself. Rescuing it from the glamorization of badness and cruelty.
Wonderful!
I do have to ask this, though. Since when have Democrats and progressives—but I repeat myself—been free trade warriors? Do they have some secret, kinder and gentler, trade policy that defends American jobs without (a) imposing tariffs or (b) opposing tariffs? Of course they don't. If Trump is economically challenged, the comrades are economically illiterate.
You don't repeat yourself, Thomas. You can Google "Biden tariff rates" if you want to see what Democratic policy on tariffs was like, in practice, until this administration took over, and you can also check what it was like under other Democratic administrations (recall President Obama's keen interest in the TPP, for example) going back to FDR (and FDR's 1934 Reciprocal Tariff Act might surprise you!).
It might be worth investing some of your valuable time time to better understand the dynamics of the political opposition, to have a more comprehensive understanding of US politics - Lord knows I've had to put in countless hours to understand what the modern GOP has become. We could start with the fact that the Bernie Sanders progressive "democratic socialist" faction is loosely allied to Liz Warren's more technocratic reformist alliance (and recall she called herself "a capitalist to her bones" an odd declaration, you must admit, for a "comrade").
And these relatively small wings are distinct, in turn, from a much larger, dispersed constellation of centrist Democrats whose numbers include the Senate and House leadership (now and traditionally) along with folks like Chris Coons, Jared Golden, Abigail Spanberger, Michael Bennett, Jacky Rosen, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Adam Schiff, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Kaine, and others. The trend by red state voters in recent years to eschew split-ticket voting and fire virtually all Blue Dog senators (Joe Manchin, Sherrod Brown, Heidi Heitkampf, Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill, etc.) no matter how capable (or, it must be said, no matter how *unwoke*) doesn't mean there isn't a real dynamic range and authentic conversations about the future direction of the Democratic Party, as you might see in the discussion around Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's Abundance book.
Matt Yglesias's Slow Boring Substack is another place where you might find policy-oriented centrist Democrats with a keen interest in policy to improve the country for the benefit of all its citizens (and I repeat: there is an earnest interest here in improving life for *all* its citizens. "I am your vengeance" isn't the reigning sentiment).
Feel free to ask any questions if you are curious about the US left.
Dunno about the politicians, but many Democratic voters claim to like capitalism pretty well, as long as it's well-regulated. To which I might reply, "Well, about that..."
But when the effective choice isn't between "fettered capitalism" and genuinely free trade, and instead between poorly-regulated trade and better-regulated trade, the better-regulated is, well, better by comparison.
Free trade in all things remains unappealing to most voters, including the ones who say they're for it (what they really might be for is some sort of prosperity gospel that's distinct from actual free trade). But trade can be freer or less-free, with the restrictions on it better or worse. Given those choices, yes, Democrats can be more appealing to free-traders than Buchananite arsonists.
If you don’t like free trade, you don’t like capitalism. And “well-regulated capitalism” is just a euphemism for state socialism.
And so from free trade to free movement, right? For what are immigration controls, if not tariffs on labor...
There are valid non-economic reasons for immigration controls, e.g. national security. You might also pause to reflect on the fact that, as the Danes eventually realized, a nation can have either a comprehensive welfare state or a liberal immigration policy—but not both. And the politics of identity, so beloved of the progressive Left, discourages the assimilation of immigrants.
All reasonable concerns in context. And similarly, non-economic reasons to protect certain strategic industries or block some foreign imports to avoid critical infrastructure exposure. Regulation is never really far away in a modern state.
Why didn’t this get more likes? You’re the least convoluted of Captain Obvious’s between us on Substack
I like free trade, but I'm not like most voters, and have got to live with that.
And I'm not sure it's helpful to call *any* degree of "well-regulated capitalism" indistinguishable from "state socialism". It seems to me there's a meaningful difference between, say, Switzerland and the Netherlands and what most people mean by "socialism". (Switzerland and the Netherlands are also meaningfully different from each other, obviously, but still governance neighbors compared to the rest of the world.)
The modern state seems doomed to be an insurance firm with a military attached. Voters – even those who swear up and down that they don't – *want* some degree of social insurance, and, in a representative government, will get some. As Milton Friedman said in "Neo-Liberalism and its Prospects", we can expect citizens in a representative to successfully petition the state "to relieve acute misery and distress" to some degree. There are better and worse ways for the state to respond, and I still think "better" errs on the side of modest. Heck, I still think Uncle Milt's summary is about the least-bad governance proposition out there:
https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/internal/media/dispatcher/214957/full
(Anarcho-capitalism still involves private governance by firms, and firms are, as Coase noted, closed off from the open market by design – https://www.perlego.com/book/1852003/the-firm-the-market-and-the-law-pdf )
I seem to recall our economic prospects looking a hell of a lot better under the “comrades” 6 months ago than they do right now. Real men admit it when they make a terrible mistake. They don’t try to excuse themselves by going off on irrelevant tangents about Bernie Sanders or the “comrades.” You fucked up!
That’s a low blow bro. Trying to trigger Tom’s masculinity. That’s like you trying to convince me I’m crazy. Tom is the Dr Johnson and Jonathan Swift of this platform. You don’t want to think about messing with him any less than me. You should also read his short-stories. He’s a serious could-be master. Love the name-change by the way. Wonder where that came from.
I may be cocky. But at least I’m not little. Tom has his moments. Though I think he can be brutalized. The pen is mightier than the sword. And my verbal jiu jitsu renders him powerless.
When you’re, you’re right Jay (about the name that is). I’m always open to good advice. Even from a cocky little punk. As for Tom, I’m sure his short stories are dynamite (not a big fan of that particular medium myself). But his political commentary is a different story. Though you may have noticed that in the next post I acknowledged that perhaps I’ve brutalized him enough and should maybe let him enjoy his senescence.
I don’t think you can “brutalize” a Vietnam veteran. You’re cockier than I am and still a loser. — I’m kidding, and I think you’re an ok writer with the flourish at the end there. Tom is also a wonderful pundit. I laugh my head off at half his posts.
Well, you recall a fantasy, whereas I have directed your attention to some realities that you’d prefer to overlook.
That’s such a weak and intellectually dishonest response that it makes me wonder if you’re even worthy of my derision. Maybe I should save my belligerence for someone more formidable and stop beating up on an old man.
Perhaps you should. I certainly wouldn’t miss you.
That hurts Tom. I really thought we were pals.
You truly must be exhausted. I can’t imagine how you find time to research so thoroughly and then craft such thoughtful assessments. I and many others are in your debt.
Yes I remember talking with Adam Garfinkle about Claire’s prolific-ocity. She is—how do I put it?—one of a kind.
Boy Howdy. Roger that! And her stuf has such depth. It’s at the other end of the spectrum from “fluff.”
Unless you are Trump, you don’t need to know anything about economics to grasp...
I keep repeating myself, but if Dunning-Krueger had a scale, Trump would be off the charts.