'Snarling whining toddler': Nobel economist tears into Trump over 'hysterical' claim

U.S. President Donald Trump angrily lashed out at Canada in response to a television ad that recently aired in the country. Featuring 1987 clips of President Ronald Reagan expressing negative views on high tariffs, the ad made a strong case against the steep new tariffs Trump is imposing on a variety of countries.

Trump is attacking the ad as "fraudulent," and some of Trump's allies are claiming that Reagan was a stronger supporter of tariffs.

But liberal economist Paul Krugman, in his October 27 column posted on Substack, argues that it is "absurd" to claim Reagan favored aggressive tariffs and a heavily protectionist trade policy.

"I thought I'd take a few minutes to weigh in on one piece of the absurdity: Donald Trump's hysterical reaction to an ad run by the Canadian province of Ontario that featured audio of Ronald Reagan denouncing tariffs and extolling free trade," Krugman argues. "I suspect that the ad especially enraged Trump because it featured Reagan, still the Republican lodestar, making a serious, reasoned case for why tariffs are generally bad for the country. In the ad, Reagan sounded presidential and trustworthy — a sure reminder of how far the Republican Party has sunk while in the grip of a grandiose, snarling, whining toddler."

Although Krugman — who won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences — has plenty of criticisms of Reaganomics and is much more favorable to the economic policies of Democratic Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, he emphasizes that Reagan saw the value of free trade, as the ad aired in Canada demonstrated.

Krugman notes that Reagan wasn't an absolutist where tariffs were concerned, but he certainly didn't favor the type of severe tariffs Trump is pushing.

"It's straightforward to go through the historical record to discover Reagan's actual position on trade," Krugman explains. "As the Financial Times puts it, Reagan 'was a devout champion of open trade who used tariffs sparingly and reluctantly.' I can also attest personally to the reality of Reagan's tariff policies because I served a year in the Reagan administration, as a sub-political, technocratic staffer working on international policy at the Council of Economic Advisers ... Reagan did, in fact, repeatedly emphasize the virtues of free trade."

Krugman continues, "Like all modern presidents, he nonetheless imposed some tariffs for political reasons. But Reagan always stayed within the boundaries of the law, using his right to impose discretionary tariffs as pressure release valves rather than abusing his authority to make tariff policy an instrument of his personal whims…. Now, Reagan did many things that, I believe, harmed America. Indeed, I would argue that his tax cuts, deregulation and anti-union policies, as well as his exploitation of racial tensions, were critical in laying the foundation for the plutocracy that is now destroying our democracy. But one thing that was clear to me while working within the Reagan Administration was that Reagan and his people — totally unlike Trump — took their promises to other countries seriously. If a proposed policy was in clear violation of our international agreements, it was simply out of bounds."

Paul Krugman's full Substack column is available at this link.