"Trump’s crusade to rebalance trade is occurring because the vicious cycle propping up the FIRE sector at the expense of the American people is breaking down. The rise of the multipolar world order disrupts the American oligarchy’s interests. The modernization and economic development of the rest of the world reduces the need for other countries to rely on American imperial hegemony. There are more trade opportunities than ever outside America. Other countries are less reliant on access to American markets, weakening the dollar’s status as reserve currency.

Any gains for the productive economy from Trump’s tariffs will likely be sabotaged by the FIRE sector’s malinvestment of capital and the foreign-policy establishment’s unwillingness to withdraw from the world. America can’t have its cake (of maintaining the dollar as the global reserve currency) and eat it too (bringing back manufacturing and resolving trade imbalances). The oligarchy cannot be expected to act in America’s best interests, because that is at the expense of its interests.

Ending the rule of the American oligarchy would require reductions of military spending, ending proxy conflicts, closing bases, and embracing diplomacy. For the FIRE sector, this would entail taxing financial transactions, using central bank window guidance, and establishing a national development bank to direct investment into productive sectors and not to asset price inflation. Tariff policy wouldn’t be used as a retaliatory action, but as a targeted and measured policy tool for incubating critical domestic industries."

https://www.compactmag.com/article/liberating-america-requires-more-than-tariffs/

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