Keep pulling the thread on Oren Cass & Noah Smith.
The United States currently has a trade deficit exceeding one trillion dollars, which involves exchanging U.S. assets like treasury debt for foreign goods.
Oren Cass predicts that former President Trump's tariffs will increase U.S. manufacturing output and employment in the long run, which he defines as a period of a few years or more.
TSMC has reportedly slowed its investment in Japan in order to invest more quickly in the United States.
According to a Bloomberg report, U.S. factory activity contracted for a fourth consecutive month in June, with new orders shrinking for the past five months.
Noah Smith advocates for the U.S. to establish entirely free trade with its allies to pool markets and achieve a manufacturing scale comparable to China's.
Real factory construction in the U.S. was flat for decades before experiencing a major boom during the Biden administration, concentrated in sectors like chips and batteries targeted by industrial policy.
The recent boom in U.S. factory construction has reversed, with the pace of new construction falling since former President Trump took office.
Elon Musk has advocated for a complete free trade zone between the U.S. and Europe to allow manufacturers in both regions to achieve greater scale.
Relative to their respective GDPs, the U.S. trade imbalance with Germany, Japan, and South Korea is as large as its trade imbalance with China.
U.S. industrial output has remained essentially flat since 2007.
The U.S. trade deficit shrank significantly after 2008, which coincides with the period when the country's manufacturing productivity and industrial output flatlined.
During the 1990s and 2000s, U.S. industrial output and manufacturing productivity were rising despite the country having its largest trade deficits ever.