Latest China Tariffs Show That Biden Can Be as Protectionist as Trump

Before becoming President, Joe Biden criticized President Trump's tariffs on China. He said that "we're going after China the wrong way” with a trade war. Shortly after becoming president, Biden implemented import quotas on steel. He kept many of Trump's tariffs intact and has managed to collect more in tariffs than Trump did. And if that were not enough, Biden imposed a series of new tariffs this Tuesday, including: 

• Steel and aluminum, from 0-7% to 25%
• Semiconductors, from 25% to 50%
• Electric vehicles, from 25% to 100%
• Batteries and components, from 0-7% to 25%
• Medical syringes and needles, from 0% to 50%

Last month, I illustrated how Trump's 60 percent tariff on China would be tantamount to economic foolishness. In another piece I wrote last August, I showed how Trump's tariffs caused such economic harm as lower employment, reduced GDP, and lower wages. I specifically pointed to how Trump's Section 301 tariffs reduced U.S. real income by $1.4 billion per month (Amiti et al., 2019), which is notable since Biden is using Section 301 to justify this latest round of tariffs. 

What compounds the inanity is that the Biden administration's United States Trade Representative released a report about how harmful Section 301 tariffs are on the same day that he announced that he was going to increase tariffs under Section 301, which would suggest hypocrisy or a lack of situational awareness. If you want to read more analysis, you can read what the Tax Foundation, Reason Magazine, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, and Cato Institute published on Biden's latest tariffs. 

What I can say is this. Biden calling his tariffs "strategic" does not change the economic reality that tariffs harms consumers and the economy as a whole, which is illustrated by this research brief from the Tax Foundation. It is clear that electing Trump would cost billions through his trade war. Much like with Biden’s erroneous take on shrinkflation or attempting student loan "forgiveness," it is a reminder that election brings out ideas that make for better politics than they do better policy. If we do not want to feel the economic pain of tariffs, Congress needs to take back the power it has given to the executive branch to regulate tariffs. 

Low-Skilled Immigrants Are Not a Fiscal or Economic Drain: Another Reason for More Immigration

When it comes to immigration policy, one distinction that is made in the debate is between low-skilled and high-skilled immigration. "High" is associated with advanced degrees, such as the STEM field and doctors.  "Low" is associated with manual labor that typically does not require a postsecondary degree, whether that is such professions as construction or farming. Both from a political and economic standpoint, the case for high-skilled immigration is more obvious. The case for high-skilled immigrants is more intuitive because their innovation and entrepreneurial spirit create a more obvious, long-term economic growth. Their economic contributions vastly outweigh whatever economic or fiscal costs might arise. 

The case is less clear for low-skilled immigrants because they earn a lower salary on average, as well as having a higher demand for government benefits than their higher-income counterparts. This is why such countries as Canada had opted for a merit-based immigration policy. A recent research paper from the American Economic Association helps but that notion to rest (Colas and Sachs, 2024). The researchers revealed "an indirect fiscal benefit for one average low-skilled immigrant of roughly $750 annually [in the United States]." 

These findings are hardly a shock for me. I made the argument back in 2015. A detailed scenario analysis from the National Academies of Science in 2017 showed that the net fiscal impact of immigrants was positive. The only exception in the NAS research was a small, negative impact on native high school dropouts since they are the closest substitute for low-skilled immigrants. 

How is this the case? In part, all immigrants, regardless of immigration status or socio-economic status, pay taxes. Not only do they contribute to the economy, but they have a higher labor participation rate than native workers. 

Most immigrant comes to the United States because wages are higher. Higher wages result in greater marginal value product (MVP), which happens because the relative price of capital increases in the short-run, which raises wages in the long-run. This increase of MVP helps contribute to the greater macroeconomic growth that low-skilled immigrants bring to the table. 

Yes, we need immigrants that can write code and perform surgery. We also need immigrants who can harvest vegetables, construct buildings and roads, care for children, supply landscaping services, and provide caregiver support to the elderly. Whether we are talking low-skilled or high-skilled immigrants, the United States needs to cut through the red tape that makes it nigh impossible to enter legally and let more immigrants into its borders so that immigrant workers and native workers alike can reap the benefits. 

Cass Review and Long-Term Dutch Study on Gender Identity Put Major Dents in Youth Gender-Affirming "Care"

A year ago, I illustrated how the practice of gender-affirming care was not an evidence. The evidence base was weak enough where the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) banned puberty blockers for adolescents earlier this year. Last month, the proponents of youth gender-affirming care took a couple of additional hits to the credibility of their argument. 

The first is the Cass Review, which is a four-year study commissioned by the NHS. Hilary Cass, who is the author of the Cass Review, is a former President of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, as well as a premier pediatrician in the United Kingdom. What Cass did with the Cass Review was write and release a 400-page report on gender identity services for young people. Just to highlight some findings:

• Many youth referred to gender-identity services are dealing with other issues, whether it is neglect, trauma, or abuse. 
• There is no good evidence on long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress. 
• Puberty blockers do not "buy them time to think" or "reduce suicide risk," both of which have been used as justifications for such a practice. Nor did hormone treatment reduce the elevated risk of death by suicide in this population. 
• The rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental, or psychosocial health. The effect on cognitive and psychosocial development remains unknown. 
• For most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress.

That was not the only bombshell dropped in recent weeks. There is also a long-term Dutch study that tracked 2,772 adolescents into early adulthood (Rawee et al., 2024). 11 percent had expressed "gender non-contentedness." This figure dropped to 4 percent by age 24-26. These findings have two implications. One is that questioning one's gender is not uncommon during one's adolescence. The second is that most adolescents get over adulthood and become gender-conforming. The main takeaway is that these results oppose rushing adolescents into gender-affirming care. 

Why do I find this issue so irksome? Because clinical practice was divorced from the clinical evidence base. This was a practice allowed to take place for a decade in the United Kingdom without robust data to support the practice. In the process, children have been harmed and thousands were complicit in that harm. Those who claimed they were helping people with advocacy of such a service were doing nothing of the kind. 

We need to take the politics out of medical practice. I thought this was a lesson that should have been learned from the pandemic when public health officials ignored evidence-based practice, cost-benefit analyses, and simple common sense. However, it looks like there is still work that needs to be done in that arena. I hope that these studies put the global medical community back on the path of recommending practices that have a strong evidence based versus the ones that are simply steeped in political ideology. 

They Aren't Freedom Fighters: Pro-Palestine Protests on College Campuses Are a Mix of Bigotry & Ignorance

As the war in Gaza carries on, student protests in support of Gaza and Hamas continue to be a staple of U.S. collegiate life. In the past three weeks, there have been protests on over 100 campuses, which have resulted in more than 2,000 arrests (see another list with news articles here). Of, course, the pro-Palestine side wants to make it as if this were simply "[mostly] peaceful protests." If they were simply peaceful demonstrations, I would support the exercise of their First Amendment rights, regardless of how reprehensible and vile I find their anti-Semitic speech. 

Forget that private universities are technically not subject to the First Amendment. As the libertarian Cato Institute point out in its legal analysis on the campus unrest, "Restrictions on the time, place, and manner of speech are allowed as long as the restrictions don't relate to the content of the speech and leave ample alternative channels of communication." These protests cross the line from protected speech to unprotected conduct, particularly the campus encampments. 

Freedom to protest does not give you a carte blanche to violate other laws. These protestors have set up tents where they are not permitted, they have intimidated students, impeded others from free access to education on campus, and have even broken into campus buildings while barricading themselves in said buildings. Between the trespassing, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest, I only wish that this abuse of the First Amendment was quashed earlier. 

This is more than a legalistic argument about freedom of speech that go beyond the ignorance, misunderstanding, and abuse of such words as occupier, colonizer, and apartheid state. The doublespeak and hate from these protestors is nothing short of astounding. 

These protestors are decrying ethnic cleansing. When the pro-Palestine protestors chant "From the river to the sea," what do you think is going on? It is bad enough that only 47 percent of protestors can tell you which river and which sea (Wall Street Journal poll). For those who know what is going on, they want everything in between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which includes Israel. At the minimum, these protestors are hypocritically calling for the ethnic cleansing of Jews, if not the downright destruction of the Jews currently living in Israel. 

What about screaming "Globalize the intifada"; is that a peaceful chant? No. They cheer on violence against Jews worldwide. The protestors want to stop alleged Israeli genocide. Not only do they ignore what genocide actually is or not understand that Israel is not committing genocide, but also that Hamas has wanted to commit genocide against the Jewish people since its founding in 1988.

And calling for a ceasefire? The protestors see to not understand that Hamas has used past ceasefires to rearm and regroup, thereby perpetuating the fighting in the region. They also forget why there is a war in the first place. On October 7, 2023, Hamas broke the previous ceasefire by crossing into Israel to rape, kidnap, torture, murder, and decapitate Israeli civilians. If the Palestinians wanted to keep its ceasefire, it would not have fired the first shot and provoke Israel with such a blatant human rights violation. 

Also, if you care about Palestinians, don't cheer for the government that oppresses its own citizens. And certainly don't cheer for the terrorist organization that uses its own civilians as human shields or hides military assets under civilian infrastructure to maximize casualties. 

Not only does Hamas not care about its own civilians, but the majority of Gazan citizens harbor hatred towards Jews. This is a society that educates its children to hate Jews. Looking at Palestinian polling data, most Palestinians do not have an issue with violence against Jews. As a matter of fact, the Palestinians (or in pre-1967, the other Arab nations) have rejected every peace offer, including the UN Partition Plan of 1947 when the Arabs were de facto given a Palestinian state. 

It would be nice to have a region where everyone gets along. After all, Israel has a multi-cultural, multi-racial society with Jews, Muslims (over 1.7 million), Christians, and Druze. If you look throughout the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the only peace and the only number of acceptable Jews is zero, or in order words, a Judenrein Middle East. For all the protestors' clamoring about peace, their vision of peace in the Middle East is neither a peaceful nor a tolerant one. 

Imagine how different that region would be if the Palestinian government worked on building peaceful relations with Israel and providing basic services to its citizenry instead of investing in military capabilities with the sole purpose of wiping out Jews. If these people were legitimately concerned about "Muslim lives matter," they would call for an end of Hamas. If they were so concerned, where were they when Bashar al-Assad killed over 600,000 Arab Muslims in Syria? Or the 150,000 Muslims killed in the War in Yemen? What about the oppression of the Uyghur Muslims in China? This does not even get into mass death or oppression against non-Muslims. I guess human rights violations only matter for this crowd when the perceived bad guy is Jewish. 

It is the same sort of ignorance and hatred that fuels these people to hold candlelight vigils for Hamas terrorists, put up photos of terrorists on campus to memorialize them, tell Jews to "go back to Poland," saying that "Zionists don't deserve to live," scream "Al-Qassam (Hamas), make us proud; Kill another soldier now;" or project anti-Semitic slogans onto campus buildings. What is even more messed up is that the protesting against Israel did not begin when the Israeli Defense Forces began their offensive in Gaza. They began earlier, shortly after October 7, 2023, merely hours after the Jewish people endured the worst pogrom since the Holocaust. 

Anti-Semitism was already bad before October 7. As a report released yesterday from the Anti-Defamation League shows, anti-Semitism has spiked yet again. College students, not to mention K-12 students, in the United States have been indoctrinated in erroneously believing the world is as simple as "oppressor versus oppressed" or that Jews are so privileged that they should be labeled as "white." As I explained last year, it should not be the least bit surprising to see that this latest surge in anti-Semitism is coming from the Far Left (see here, here, and here).

It is not difficult to see how these college protests, along with the other pro-Palestine protests, stoke age-old anti-Semitic tropes. Regardless of whether the protestors are blissfully ignorant or downright anti-Semitic, I can safely say that these protestors are not freedom fighters. If they possessed situational or historical awareness, they would realize they are actually rooting for ethnic cleansing, genocide, and destruction of a historically oppressed people. These protestors are not fighting for the freedom of "the little guy," but rather cheerleading corrupt, homophobic, anti-Semitic, genocidal terrorists. 

I expect to see more college protests, more arrests on college campuses, and graduations that are either cancelled or disrupted in light of these demonstrations. Aside from crackdowns on the disruptive conduct that is not protected by the First Amendment, I hope that there are counterprotests to peacefully demonstrate against the clear support for violence and hatred that emanates from the pro-Palestine side. The disruptive actions from the pro-Palestine side that go beyond freedom of speech and freedom of protest have no place in civil society.

Want to Lower Illegal Border Crossings to the U.S.? Open Immigration and Grant More Immigrants Citizenship

Since the pandemic, there has been a surge in the number of undocumented individuals crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. Per most recent figures, there are about 10-11 million undocumented workers in the United States. Many cities, including New York and Chicago, are dealing with a considerable influx in migrants. According to recent Pew Research survey data, there are many Americans, particularly those who lean Republican, who believe that the solution is to beef up border security and make it more difficult for migrants to enter. 

I do not think that the solution is that simple as that. The Left-leaning Brookings Institution brings up a few reasons as to why there will continue to be a persistent border issue. Here is one major reason Brookings details. While it is historically true that Mexicans made up for most of the crossings on the border, that is no longer the case. There is a broader demand from multiple countries to migrate to the United States. As I have brought up before, these migrants are facing gang violence, high crime rates, shaky institutions, and for many, economic opportunities that do not justify the living conditions. This is why we saw an uptick in repeat crossings at the border under Trump's Title 42: because taking the risk beats heading back home. 

There is also the matter of it being more difficult to hire border patrol agencies than other law enforcement; the surge management issue (i.e., maintaining a workforce with a fluctuating labor demand); and the backlog in immigrant courts to hear asylum cases. If greater border security does not solve the issue, what would? Allowing for more immigration. This is not my mere opinion. This is from a recent study from Peterson Institute senior fellow Michael Clemens, who is one of the foremost immigration economists. Here is an excerpt from his paper (Clemens, 2024):

"Using statistical methods designed to distinguish causation from simple correlation, it finds that a policy of expanding lawful channels to cross the border by 10 percent in a given month causes a net reduction of about 3 percent in unlawful crossings several months later. Fluctuations in the constraints on lawful crossings can explain roughly 9 percent of the month-to-month variation in unlawful crossings. The data suggest that policies expanding access to lawful crossings can serve as a partial but substantial deterrent to unlawful crossing and that expanding access can serve as an important tool for more secure and regulated borders."

This is important to consider given that the idea that there is some front door that people can enter to migrate legally or that there is some path to citizenship that people are too lazy to follow is a joke. As I brought up last July, 99.4 percent of those who would like to migrate to the United States have no legal means to do so. This being the reality of the U.S. immigration system shows that there is much improvement to be had in terms of comprehensive immigration reform and granting more immigrants citizenship to the United States. 

It is more than expansive immigration that helps those in need, closes the gap on the labor shortage, and that grows the U.S. economy, including for the citizens that currently live in the U.S. Allowing for more expansive immigration policy translates into fewer border crossings, thereby draining fewer resources on border regulation while booming the economy. That way, we can boost the economy while living up to the American Dream of being a nation of ingenuity driven by immigrants, or to channel former President Ronald Reagan, to be "a shining city on a hill."