America is faced with serious problems that require immediate action. Illegal immigrants are committing horrible crimes. “Woke” programs are entrenched in our schools, from elementary schools through universities. Judges are abusing their powers in order to block President Trump from cutting the budget and firing federal employees. Some people respond to this dire situation by demanding more power for the president. We must have government by executive order, they say. Is dictatorship such a terrible word? Not if it is for the right cause.

When a government imposes tariffs, the stated intention is simple: protect domestic industry, support local jobs, and strengthen national economic resilience. Yet, from the perspective of Austrian economics, specifically the insights of Ludwig von Mises and Frédéric Bastiat, tariffs are rarely successful in achieving their stated aims. Instead, they generate unseen but profound costs, hidden disruptions, and massive economic dislocations due to the inherent heterogeneity and specificity of capital goods involved.

The stock market experienced a sharp drop last week and earlier this week after President Trump announced he was implementing a number of new tariffs that were higher than most market analysts had been expecting.

This semester—through the generosity of the Dean and Cam Williams Foundation to the Ludwig von Mises Institute for its book club program—the University of Mount Olive has been hosting a Book Club where we have been reading the collected works of Frédéric Bastiat.

Imagine a firm that sells a product—production costs are 2 ounces (oz.) of gold—only to the US, which has a 10 percent tariff on the import. The firm correctly estimates the aggregate demand schedule for its product as follows:

One of the statues that was taken down in the 2020 purge of the Southern statues was that of the great American statesman from South Carolina, John. C. Calhoun.

In recent days, we have read numerous articles about a possible agreement between the US administration and its main trading partners to devalue the US dollar. It has been named “The Mar-A-Lago Accord”, a concept inspired by the Plaza Accord of 1985, which aimed to devalue the US dollar to address trade imbalances. That plan failed.

On February 18, 2025 President Trump issued an executive order titled, “Ensuring Accountability for all Agencies,” in which he says,

…previous administrations have allowed so-called “independent regulatory agencies” to operate with minimal Presidential supervision. These regulatory agencies currently exercise substantial executive authority without sufficient accountability to the President, and through him, to the American people.