@eARCwelder i agree it’s good to move beyond “free trade” dogma. i just think tariffs are for the most part a really terrible tool, so terrible in fact they may well discredit my view that the balance and composition of trade is a necessary and legitimate object of policy, and give succor to foolishly dogmatic “free trade” under the usual neolib “see, TINA. we told you so.”

trade balance should be regulated on the regulatory, that is capital-account, side.

@eARCwelder (no country is linking military expenditure to trade deficit that i know of. Japan i think now runs a small trade deficit but its overall balance of payments remains positive. it’s really the overall current account deficit that represents the demand drag fiscal policy, potentially military, gets called to fill. one wldn’t expect, if a country did this, it would improve relations with surplus powers. the point is to make surplus countries perceive themselves as “financing” a threat.)