“The next Administration must prioritize the economic prosperity of ordinary Americans. For several decades, establishment “elites” have failed the citizenry by refusing to secure the border, outsourcing manufacturing to China and elsewhere, spending recklessly, regulating constantly, and generally controlling the country from the top down rather than letting it flourish from the bottom up.” (Project 2025, Section 4: The Economy, page 689, paragraph 1.) 

We’re off to a bad start, here, considering that many of the policies the Heritage Foundation has touted throughout Project 2025 would result in economic devastation. I address that every time it comes up under a specific mandate. Second, are they arguing that their particular brand of fascism wouldn’t be “controlling from the top down”? They’re literally arguing for staffing the entire federal government with regime loyalists.¹ It’s throughout this document.

Third, they praise Reagan throughout this document, who gave us trickle-down economics, which not only didn’t work² but is the opposite of “letting it flourish from the bottom up.”

Pay attention to their actions, not their words. Their guy (Trump) is the one who killed the bipartisan border control bill³, so he could continue to campaign on it as an issue. Obviously, the border can’t be that big of a problem if it can wait to be addressed.

As for economically disengaging from China⁴, as is argued for in the Foreword of Project 2025, the results of that, at this point, are also economic devastation.

Bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. is easier said than done, and I haven’t heard any of the contributors to this document argue for solutions that would actually accomplish it. (At least, not yet.)

Part of the reason is that technology has made manufacturing complicated. Specialized parts of the whole are often built by particular companies, and then the whole is assembled later. We truly have a global economy at this point. It’s also consumer-driven:

“These pressures lead to a race to the bottom in production costs in which product companies have minimal incentives to maintain production locations in high-cost locations or to worry about geographic diversity in production. And that behavior is encouraged by consumers and business end users. If an N95 mask sitting on a rack at Home Depot that is made in China looks equivalent to an adjacent higher-priced one made in the United States, consumers typically opt for the less-expensive one.” [Source]⁵

I’m not going to pretend I have all of the answers to this one, but simply unraveling it isn’t enough – forcing manufacturers to locally source their procurement practices will SKYROCKET prices for both manufacturers and consumers, leading to job losses and more. There are incentives that can be leveraged, such as lowering corporate tax rates or providing credits for companies that bring production back to the U.S., reducing their financial burden. Practical ideas for bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. is a whole other essay. Suffice it to say, you can’t force its hand by simply “disengaging” from foreign countries without severe economic consequences.

“Lassman does not think that an aggressive U.S. trade policy would lead to more manufacturing jobs. Rather, he writes, “Federal Reserve research shows” that the Trump Administration’s steel tariffs, and the retaliatory tariffs levied by other nations in response, “have cost about 75,000 manufacturing jobs while creating only about 1,000 jobs in the steel industry.” Furthermore, he writes that “protectionism and similar progressive policies tend to weaken American security.” Lassman maintains that “trade creates peace,” and if China weren’t so reliant upon trade with the U.S., it would be “much more unstable and dangerous.”” (Project 2025, Section 4: The Economy, pages 689 and 690.)

Project 2025 is a bit all over the place with regard to who supports tariffs and who does not. Lassman didn’t serve in the Trump administration, so perhaps he has a clearer picture of what a bad idea tariffs generally are. Lassman is correct in his assertion, but off on his numbers. Trump’s tariffs on China alone cost the United States 245,000 jobs, according to a Janurary 21 study, in addition to $51 billion in increased consumer prices and a net loss of $7.2 billion to the economy. More about that here.⁶

For context, Lassman shares Section 4.6: Trade⁷ with Peter Navarro, who disagrees with him almost across the board. Peter Navarro DID serve in the Trump administration, and spent four months in prison in 2024 for contempt of Congress. Navarro is a proponent of “decoupling” from China.

“In contrast to Lassman, Navarro thinks that “trade deficits matter a great deal.”” (Project 2025, Section 4: The Economy, page 690 paragraph 4.)

Trump is famously obsessed with trade deficits, and, like tariffs, doesn’t understand what they are or how they work.

I wrote an informal commentary about this tweet in May 2019:

“Trump doesn’t appear to understand that “trade deficits” aren’t actually deficits. We don’t owe money. We aren’t losing money. It means that we are consumers, which is a sign of economic strength. The literal definition of a trade deficit is, the amount by which a country’s imports exceeds the amount of its exports. We have a $500B trade deficit with China because we bought $500B more in goods from them than they bought from us. This seems simple enough to understand.

Unfortunately, Trump is such a simpleton that he thinks that every transaction has a clear winner and a clear loser, and the winner is always the one who walks away with more money. All of his personal deals are scams, so he thinks that all deals are scams, and that paying money is a sign of weakness. He wants you to think he’s looking out for the American people, but all he’s doing is making it more expensive for American businesses to operate and more expensive for American consumers to buy things. Farmers will be hit hard in particular. We got something for the money we spent. The goods we bought from China created opportunity and fueled industry here.

Trading doesn’t equal losing money, and more tariffs aren’t the answer – that’s only going to punish ourselves. China will just jack up the prices on the things they sell us to pay for anything punitive we try to do in that direction. And why shouldn’t they? Also, traditional tariffs are paid for by the importer, so we’d be screwing ourselves there, too. The tariffs on Chinese imports would be paid to the U.S. Government by the U.S. companies doing the importing. Not by China.

Or, if you’re a fan of analogy, we got stuff for the money we “gave” China. We purchased goods for our $500 billion dollars. You don’t go shopping, buy a bunch of stuff, then complain that you “lost” your money. When you go to the grocery store and buy $100 worth of goods, the grocery store doesn’t come to your house and give you $100 for a lamp. You spend money on their stuff, they don’t spend money on your stuff. That’s all a “trade deficit” is. It’s not “unfair”, because you got the stuff you paid for.

It’s debatable whether China is “playing fairly” with us with regard to trade. My issue is not with Trump taking a stand. My issue is that he clearly has no idea how any of this works, and no clear strategy other than bluster.”