Econ desk: What the Steel Tariffs Mean

The real driving force behind Trump’s steel tariffs, argues National Review’s Jim Geraghty , is the fact that “just about every steelmaker outside of China is complaining that they’re being forced to complete with Chinese exports that are being sold at a loss.” With China’s long-running “housing and construction boom coming to an end,” its steel producers faced huge incentives to keep up production and sell below cost in global markets to compensate. “Compared to Trump’s recent across-the-board tariffs on neighbors Canada and Mexico,” this is “easier to justify.” Yes, such tariffs would be “on all producers, not just those in China. But at least here Trump has identified an indisputable problem and a genuinely unfair Chinese trade practice that is disrupting the global steel markets.”

Liberal: Dems’ Foolish Fight for USAID

Trump signs executive order reversing Biden’s plastic straw ban

“If you want evidence that Democrats have learned nothing from their November 5 shellacking,” just look at “Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen,” who has “vowed to protect USAID in the courts,” scoffs Ruy Teixeira at The Free Press . “Trump occupies the high ground in this fight” because “Democrats are unconditionally defending an obscure government institution” that “does one of American voters’ least favorite things: provide foreign aid.” Dems’ defense of USAID is even more ill-advised considering that “anti-foreign aid sentiment runs highest among working-class voters, precisely the people who have been defecting from the Democrats for Trump.” Trump “is guaranteed to do many things that are genuinely unpopular and impinge upon voters’ lives in areas like healthcare, education, and the cost of living. Democrats should keep their powder dry for those fights.”

Swamp watch: Funding Israel’s Enemies

FBI unearths 2,400 more JFK assassination files after Trump’s order

“Current and former U.S. officials” say “they watched for years” as USAID “funneled millions of dollars to anti-Israel advocacy groups and entities linked to terrorism,” reports the Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo. The grants included $900,000 just six days before the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks to a Gaza charity linked to “the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.” And Biden USAID “officials fought pro-Israel policymaking at the State Department, often urging their colleagues at Foggy Bottom to pare down statements that praised the Jewish state.” And: “USAID staffers went as far as to urge the Biden State Department to end military aid to Israel.” Watchdog reports point to millions sent to nonprofits closely allied with, or controlled by, Hamas.

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Energy beat: Jersey Blowing $$$ in the Wind

“How many multibillion-dollar projects must go bust before a Governor comes to his senses?” asks The Wall Street Journal editorial board of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s latest wind-power project failure. Shell’s Atlantic Shores is the third wind project “to fail despite generous terms from the state.” The boondoggle “would have raised electricity rates by 11% for residents and 13% to 15% for businesses,” yet Shell bailed because it still “doubted it would profit at the end of the road.” Indeed, “it’s always the developers that give up on these projects and never the state, despite the awful prospects for ratepayers.” Murphy “still hasn’t given up his green dreams,” but the offshore-wind schemes look to be an epic “once-in-a-generation failure.”

Libertarian: Scrap the Education Department

“Plans to deep-six the Department of Education, a useless bureaucracy born as a political payoff, would be an important step in the right direction,” cheers Reason’s J.D. Tuccille . After then-candidate Jimmy Carter promised the National Education Association he’d seek to create such a department, the group rewarded him with its first-ever presidential endorsement. Yet its creation set up “a whole bureaucracy dedicated to what had traditionally been (and remains) primarily a state, local, and family issue,” nudging schools “in directions” backed by teachers unions. Despite spending more than $1 trillion since, it’s been a “failure.” Scrapping the department “could decentralize education, improve outcomes, and increase parents’ satisfaction with how their kids are taught.” Plus, it could “help reduce the size of the federal Leviathan.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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