For once, Trump’s trade tactics hit the mark 
Claude Barfield | The HillClaude Barfield argues that in choosing to confront China’s aggressive high-tech mercantilist trade regime, President Trump and his team are on target. Barfield explains the administration’s tactics as a two-pronged attack on China’s high-tech mercantile regime. First, it is bringing a case before the World Trade Organization (WTO), arguing that Beijing’s forced technology transfer and intellectual property practices violate China’s terms of WTO accession. Second, it is invoking Section 301, the provision in basic US trade law that authorizes the president to proceed unilaterally against a wide variety of alleged unfair trade practices.

Mexico and the United States have signed three accords to improve bilateral customs procedures and expedite the flow of agricultural produce across their almost 2,000-mile (3,220-km)border, the two governments said on Monday. - Reuters
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 Talks to rework the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are opening a window of opportunity that might allow the United States, Mexico and Canada to reach a basic deal in the coming weeks, a Mexican private sector business leader said on Monday. - Reuters

Chaotic Trade Negotiations Will Likely Result in Lower Barriers
Mickey Levy, E21
The negotiations among major trading nations about global trade policies are driven by knowledge about the magnitudes of trade, what goods and services are traded and their multi-national flows, as well as current tariffs, quotas, and other barriers. 
While Trump’s proposed tariffs on all U.S. imports of steel and aluminum are misguided and the Administration’s aversion to bilateral trade deficits makes no economic sense, the Administration has provided exemptions to Canada, Mexico, and other U.S.-friendly nations. The focus of the trade negotiations has shifted to China’s blatantly unfair trade practices. Read more here....

Trillion Dollar Spending Bill Exemplifies Dysfunctional Congress
Brian Riedl, E21
Congress has passed a 2,232-page appropriations bill that spends $1.3 trillion. And not a single lawmaker has read it.  Nor does the Congressional staff– who typically summarize the endless statutory legalese for their bosses – have a strong grasp of how this $1.3 trillion is being spent, and how the unrelated appropriations riders will operate. Read more here....

In Defense of 'Row Hard and Live' 
By Zachary Griffiths, Modern War Institute: “Successful bureaucracies aren’t where expertise dies, however, but where it lives in the government.”

GOP Spending Blowout Invalidates Tax Cuts
Brian Riedl, Washington Examiner

Washington’s recent deficit-blowout should finally kill the “starve the beast” hypothesis. This idea – which initially caught fire with conservatives in the 1980s – is that the most effective way to shrink government is to first cut taxes and “starve” the government of funding. At that point, the hypothesis goes, deficit-focused politicians will have no choice but to reduce spending accordingly.So how does “starve the beast” explain that – just 49 days after signing into law the largest tax cut in 16 years – President Trump signed the largest spending expansion in 8 years? Read more here....

Huge Trade Deficits Smaller Than You Think
David Hoffman & Erik Lundh, Bloomberg View

STEVEN MALANGA  States of Siege
The worst recovery in decades has changed the way local governments tax and spend.

MYRON MAGNET  Who Saved New York?  Never forget how and why it happened

The first economic lesson that Larry Kudlow should deliver to Trump? That trade deficits are ‘made in the USA’ 
Mark J. Perry | AEIdeas

Interpreting “The Numbers Behind the Opioid Crisis”: Remarks from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) 
Sally Satel and Ryan Streeter | AEI event
On Tuesday AEI welcomed Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and a panel of experts to discuss “The Numbers Behind the Opioid Epidemic,” a report from the Joint Economic Committee’s Social Capital Project. Sen. Lee offered an overview of the crisis, highlighting both the intensity and the scope of its impact

The key to American ingenuity: A short-read Q&A with author Kevin Baker 
James Pethokoukis | AEIdeas

Our willful ignorance on drug prices 
Benedic N. Ippolito | The HillBenedic Ippolito addresses the recent report from Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) that shows list prices for the most common Medicare drugs have risen at nearly 10 times the inflation rate over the past five years. Ippolito explains that the true “price” of a pharmaceutical is not always clear -- in fact pharmaceutical list prices have increasingly diverged from actual payment rates. Ippolito believes that the discussion surrounding pharmaceutical prices must begin with acknowledging the US health care system’s opaque and bewildering pricing system.

Disentangling Medicare’s two functions 
James C. Capretta | Real Clear Health
​James Capretta argues that to consider more far-reaching changes to Medicare, Congress must first consider what purpose the program is intended to serve. Capretta explains that Medicare serves two distinct purposes: First, it is a community-rated insurance plan; second, it is a social-insurance, tax-and-transfer program, modeled on Social Security. Capretta proposes that Medicare’s costs would be much lower if the workers who paid their entire health insurance premium while working were also asked to pay for most of their Medicare coverage in retirement. Although it is an improbable reform, the federal government’s fiscal outlook is deteriorating, and Medicare is a big part of the problem.

GATESTONE INSTITUTE

A CRISIS OF LIBERALISM?By EPPC Adjunct Fellow Eric Cohen
The Weekly Standard

There is much to admire in Patrick Deneen’s book Why Liberalism Failed, which combines impressive learning in the history of political theory and genuine attention to the complex realities of contemporary life. But the book is also deeply flawed. Read More