If I were granted three or four minutes at the microphone during a Republican senator’s or representative’s town hall, I would cite a recent article by Greg Ip, The Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator (“The U.S. marches toward state capitalism with American characteristics”).
Mr. Ip, relying on conservative principles, criticizes President Donald J. Trump for “extending political control ever deeper into the economy.” Trump, by doing so, is adopting the Chinese Communists’ state-command system and undermining America’s free-market capitalism.
Trump’s anti-free-market power-plays are far from trivial. They include:
1. The president’s recent demand that Intel’s CEO resign;
2. His decree that 15% of Nvidia’s and Advanced Micro Device’s profits from the sale of specified microchips to China be delivered to the U.S. government;
3. His insistence that Washington be granted a “golden share” of U.S. Steel as a condition of Nippon Steel’s takeover;
4. His pressuring U.S. trading partners to pledge a $1.5 trillion investment in America — an investment to be managed by Trump himself;
5. His commandeering concessions from law firms, media outlets and universities;
6. His imposition of tariffs similar to those dictated by China’s Communist leaders.
Are Utah’s senators and representatives effectively using their constitutional powers to check Trump’s anti-free-market excesses? Or do they support Trump’s politicization of our economic order?
Andrew Bjelland, Salt Lake City