“If it were easy, Trump would have done it.” I don’t think so. I don’t think Trump understands the connection between net capital flows and trade imbalance. I think he decided in his 20s or 30s that tariffs are great and have fetishized it since. 1/

Capital controls restrict rich-people investment, rather than merely raise consumption costs that are in any case a small fraction of rich-person income and wealth like tariffs. Trump wouldn’t like the idea of restricting rich-people investing. /fin

( there’s a whole series of posts on this, see the list at the end. i really do think this is the best mechanism for balancing trade given the current low-trust state if geopolitics. )