Alex Thompson clearly does not understand the free market (“Utah’s representatives have abandoned free market principles that help small business owners like me,” The Tribune).
In fact, many conservatives don’t.
There are social and moral underpinnings to free markets. In the case of tariffs, most conservatives would rightly oppose initiating an uneven playing field. Though honest conservatives would not be duplicitous in their opposition when the world can impose them, but we cannot because we believe in free markets.
Trump has it right in many ways. Level the playing field. Foreign tariff countries are not competing, they are cheating. So Trump is correct to level the playing field.
There is no free market when one country imposes tariffs on us and we fail to address the cheating. We’ve suffered an unfair market for 80 years. Trump is trying to address the injustice.
To learn how free markets have social and moral underpinnings, every honest free market conservative should read “The Humane Economy” by Wilhelm Ropke, a highly respected Austrian school economist and close friend of famed F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.
Utah’s congressional delegation is right to let it all play out.
Paul Mero, Eagle Mountain