Making sense of the current situation

I generally don’t post about politics, and really this is not about politics, although it is the position of the current Trump administration on tariffs that has spurred me to write something here. After a very long career as an Economics Professor, and my current status as a Professor Emeritus if I choose to use that honorific, I remain fundamentally interested in economics and helping others understand the world through economics.

While discussing the current “trade war” instigated by the massive universal tariffs placed on goods imported into the United States in the early months of the Trump 47 administration, I have been drawn into an investigation of what Stephen Miran has called the Mar-a-Lago Accord, a three-element plan to bring manufacturing back the US, to eliminate the US trade imbalance, and to reduce the impact of the US Federal debt. To provide a basis for understanding some of this, the article below from the American Institute for Economic Research is highly recommended. It is clearly written (with only a few errors) and quite comprehensive.