Trump Tariffs are not a Solution - What is?
Progressive Populism
Tariffs are not a Solution to core economic problems including wealth inequality and a lack of good jobs for the working class – What is?
Robert Reich was profoundly correct by posting that “Trump’s regressive populism — cruel, tyrannical, bigoted, authoritarian — must be met by a bold progressive populism that strengthens democracy and shares the wealth”. Reich also correctly criticized Democrats in government (other than Bernie Sanders, AOC, and a handful of others) for not being able or willing to identify the cause of the core problems in the economy including wealth inequality and not blaming those responsible – Republicans, big corporations, Wall Street, and the billionaire class.
The solution to core economic problems in America is not Trump’s tariffs.
If you believe Trump’s tariffs will bring manufacturing back to America as a solution to the lack of good jobs for working class Americans by thinking that large corporations will hire people rather than robots, watch this video of robots working at the BMW factory making SUVs in Spartanburg, SC.
Don’t despair at the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, I have analyzed core economic problems in America and have a solution which will create good paying jobs for working class people and restore wealth equality with prosperity and security. The two core problems in the economy are a (1) a lack of good paying jobs for working class Americans and (2) wealth inequality. A third problem is global warming and the need to reduce damaging emissions to mitigate the destructive impact.
The solutions to those three problems in the economy will be described in a series of 7 posts. The posts will be published at an interval of four weeks to give you time to read the post, comment, and discuss. In Posts #6 and #7, I will describe detailed solutions to the three problems, which the Democrats still don’t understand but need to understand and commit to a Plan that delivers the solutions. In 2028, Democrats need to describe the PLAN and the solutions to voters to get elected in 2028.
As an example of the solutions which will be described in the posts, the AI robots shown in the video can be acquired by working class owners of new businesses using subsidies provided by the federal government to the working class rather than having the federal government extend including tax cuts of $4.2 trillion to the wealthy 1%. With federal subsidies and other assistance, members of the working class can implement their own factories and use the rules of capitalism for their advantage.
The seven posts are
1. Trump Tariffs are not a Solution - What is ?
2. Introduction to Solutions to core problems in the economy
3. Republicans block Solutions to core problems in the economy
4. Republicans created the Rigged System as a Barrier to Solutions
5. Removing barriers to Solutions to core problems in the economy
6. Proposed Solutions to the core problems in the economy
7. Implementing Solutions to core problems in the economy
This is Post #1 which is provided to all free subscribers, but access to the other posts and making comments will require paid subscriptions.
As I will describe in the series of 7 posts, history shows that the American economy evolved driven by innovation and federal government support and progressed to increase the standard of living and the quality of life through the AGRICULTURAL AGE, the INDUSTRIAL AGE, into the current INFORMATION AGE (DIGITAL AGE), which is where most jobs are. We should not go back to the INDUSTRIAL AGE which was driven by manufacturing. Trump and Republicans are falsely claiming manufacturing will return to America driven by tariffs and the working class will be rich again.
The future is reflected by valuations of the leaders on the stock market which are INFORMATION AGE, digital technology companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), Apple, and Nvidia. The companies are not manufacturing companies. When they sell products, they don’t manufacture them. They design digital products and services which are information systems built with software engineering and clusters of computers housed in huge data centers. Nvidia designs semiconductor chips to improve computing with artificial intelligence (AI) but Nvidia contracts with foreign companies to do the manufacturing of their chips.
As described in the series of 7 posts, evolution through the economic ages has relied on innovation to create a new means of production of goods and services based on new human and machine capabilities. The Agriculture Age was built on production of food with farming, the Industrial Age was built on production of products with manufacturing, and the Information Age was built on production of information with services built with digital computers, software, and communication networks such as the Internet.
The INNOVATION AGE must transform the structure and operation of the economy to solve problems in the economy including the lack of good paying jobs for everyone, wealth inequality, and global warming. The Innovation Age must be driven by a human capability which is a new professional discipline to enable transformational innovation that creates and then applies other new human capabilities. These new capabilities enable more independent production of essentials such as food to enable more self-reliant, sustainable living as will be required for humans to live on Mars and in rural America away from cities. Systems must be closed-loop, recycling, self-learning with assistance from artificial intelligence, self-diagnosing and self-healing. New professional disciplines were required to enable farming and manufacturing. Finance and accounting were required for banking and business. The legal profession with lawyers was required to create and manage the law in government and business. Engineering as a profession was required for computing, construction, and transportation vehicles including cars and airplanes. The medical profession with doctors, nurses, and technicians was required to provide healthcare using drugs (antibiotics, vaccines …) , and imaging equipment such x-ray or MRI machines.
Post #1 will describe where we are today. Post #2 will describe how the Republican party supported destructive economic policy that caused the Great Depression in 1929, the Great Recession in 2008, and led to Trump’s tariffs in 2025. Post #2 will describe how the Republican party since 1971 intentionally deceived the public to accept the destructive policy of “trickle-down” economics that blocks funding of services and financial assistance to be delivered to the public by the federal government to help improve prosperity, security and the quality of life in the economy. Republicans falsely claimed and still claim (1) only an unregulated free market can properly manage the economy, and (2) the federal government had never and could never help manage the economy to delivery prosperity, security, and better quality of life. Post #2 will describe the history in America of how the federal government directed and funded innovation to create solutions to problems in the American economy and grow the economy since 1793.
As an example, the initial problem was the economy being stuck in the AGRICULTURAL AGE until Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary under President George Washinton, wrote the plan in 1793 to add manufacturing to take American into the INDUSTRIAL AGE.
But the bigger and more dangerous problem today is a Republican party transformed in the 20th Century to follow an economic policy pushed by the wealthy and corporations that caused the Great Depression, then caused the 2008 Great Recession, and has now caused the destruction of the domestic and global economies in 2025 with the Trump tariffs and other Republican party actions.
Since 1971, Republicans organized with the wealthy, corporations and intolerant, right-wing, white fake Christians to attack the progressive policies of Democrats and FDR’S New Deal that rescued America from the Greal Depression.
The Republican party, beginning with Reagan, implemented a regressive version of economic policy that went far beyond demanding unregulated free markets to demanding massively reduced taxes for the wealthy and corporations.
In the 1990s, the Republican party gained new power by taking control of the House in 1994 for the first time since 1954. Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House fundamentally changed Republican party policy and tactics from bipartisan to belligerent, hostile, partisan, unified messaging with constant press releases that attacked Democrats. Gingrich pushed Republicans to cause government shutdowns and pushed Democrats including President Clinton to become neoliberals accepting Republican policies such as welfare reform, attacks on unions, and further tax cuts to balance the budget. Republicans escalated and intensified the attack on multicultural democracy and civil rights that began in 1971.
The decline of the Democratic party began with LBJ’s Vietnam War but escalated when Clinton adopted neoliberal policy that harmed working class Americans by attacking unions and pushing globalization with free trade agreements such as NAFTA. Clinton didn’t believe manufacturing was important because factory jobs had steadily declined as a percent of total American payrolls from the 1950 at around 30% to about 15% in 1990.
See the diagram that plots BLS data.
Over the last 40 years, the number of manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979 and then rapidly declined since 2002 as globalization was launched and the economy continued to shift to service-providing industries.
See the diagram that plots BLS data of the number of manufacturing jobs.
As you can see, the number of manufacturing jobs rapidly declined since 2002. In June 1979, manufacturing employment reached an all-time peak of 19.6 million. In June 2019, employment was at 12.8 million, down 6.7 million or 35 percent from the all-time peak. The decline of manufacturing jobs rapidly accelerated after Clinton supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) which occurs on December 11, 2001. Therefore, you can see why the working class believed Clinton and globalization caused a core problem in the economy which is the lack of good paying jobs for the non-college educated working class.
As mentioned, in Posts #6 and #7, I will describe detailed solutions to the problem, which the Democrats still don’t understand but need to understand to get elected in 2028.
What happened in 2016 should not have been a surprise. In 2016, a tipping point in American politics occurred which was as a rejection by populist, intolerant, white working class, non-college educated voters of the established economic policy and politics supported by Republicans and Democrats that had created the two core problems in the economy, (1) a lack of good paying jobs for working class Americans and (2) wealth inequality. Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, had not actively complained about or recognized the two core problems in the economy and certainly didn’t offer viable solutions. Globalization was not a solution to problems in the economy as both Clintons falsely believed.
In 2016, Millions of working-class voters supported Trump who claimed he would create good paying jobs for working class Americans. Working class voters rejected the traditional the Republican party and Democrats and supported Trump who claimed he would conduct a belligerent, more aggressive attack on Democrats and globalization than had been done by the traditional Republicans.
After 2020, a group of far right anti-democratic, power hungry, impatient, greedy, wealthy Americans, who were funding think tanks including the Heritage Foundation, rejected the policies and actions of Trump in his first term as too moderate, creating not enough radical change that was also occurring too slowly. Therefore, the group began to prepare to elect Trump in 2024 and prepare Project 2025 as the plan for a second Trump term as president. Trump accepted the group’s support including Project 2025 and the funding from Musk. Trump changed his campaign strategy and messaging to be more aggressive about ending waste fraud and abuse in the federal government caused by the Deep State.
After the insurrection on Jan 6, 2021, Republicans in Congress converted to be subservient supporters of Trump and Project 2025 because they were intimidated and threatened by Trump, his new wealth supporters and his MAGA followers. Republicans, working class, populist voters, and the power-hungry, anti-democratic wealthy supported a continuation of the insurrection in 2024 that had begun Jan 6, 2021, to elect Trump. Trump repeated the MAGA messaging of putting America First and the claim that only he could restore a good economy with low inflation and good jobs for Americans by stopping immigrations at the border and conducting a mass deportation of criminal illegal immigrants. Trump and the Trump controlled Republican party now rejected history, reality, the Constitution, and the rule of law. Trump’s campaign was significantly funded by a $250 million donation from Musk, an oligarch.
In his first 100 days, Trump, subservient Republicans, and oligarchs like Musk completed the insurrection by following the plan described in Project 2025 to implement an autocratic, fascist government in America intending to destroy all aspects of the America created in the 20th Century. The Trump regime in 2025 was driven by the economic policy to shift all wealth and power to the top 1% wealthy Americans but also to deconstructing, defunding and privatizing most of the federal government. But what surprised and shocked wealthy Americans, corporations, Wall Street and the stock market was Trump’s destruction of the American and global economies with his unprecedented, extreme, unjustified tariffs that raised taxes and would raise prices and inflation harming consumers but also attacked the financial health of corporations and all countries including Canada, Mexico, the EU, Japan, and China.
REQUIREMENTS FOR A SOLUTION TO CORE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS
The first immediate need before any solution to economic problems in the economy can be implemented is to stop the insurrection by Trump, Republicans, and oligarchs that includes illegal tariffs. The insurrection is intentionally creating economic destruction, the destruction of the rule-of-law, the rejection of Constitutional rights, and the attack on democracy. Democrats and “we the people” need to have a legal solution to stop the insurrection.
Read my post.
https://williamlmiller.substack.com/p/how-to-stop-trump-republicans-and?r=4tebj3
The second important need is for Democrats to get elected by clearly communicating to voters that Democrats have a viable PLAN to end the disaster created by Trump and Republicans. But Democrats don’t yet adequately understand the economic problems in America and therefore don’t have a viable PLAN to solve the two core economic problems in America.
As mentioned, an extremely important third problem in the economy that requires attention, analysis and a solution in a PLAN is mitigating the destructive impact of global warming mostly caused by burning fossil fuels. Democrats have done a better job understanding this problem and beginning to implement minor parts of a solution.
Robert Reich posted a speech by Al Gore on the third problem that is essential reading.
Here is the link.
https://open.substack.com/pu/robertreich/p/gore-on-trump?r=4tebj3&utm
Read my Post #2, which will be published on July 8, 2025.
“Introduction to Solutions to Core Problems in the Economy”.
This is jam-packed with helpful info. Thank you.