Source: Washington Post
by Dominic Pino
“We’re familiar at this point with the ‘America First’ justification for tariffs: The United States has a large trade deficit in goods, and this is bad because it means American jobs to make those goods went abroad. … But it’s also worth pointing out that it’s just as easy to make a nationalist case against trade surpluses. As it stands, nationalists already don’t like the trade surplus the U.S. does have. They demean jobs in finance and tech as unmanly and hold intangible products to be less vital than tangible ones, even though the U.S. services trade surplus is nearly $300 billion. … what if nationalists achieved their model economy, one led by exports of durable goods by durable men? I’m skeptical they’d enjoy it as much as they believe they would.” (08/07/25)