There’s no such thing as free trade…

There’s no such thing as free trade… 

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. 

-      Hunter S. Thompson 

On Truth Social, the president said he was ending all trade negotiations with Canada because of a video ad, paid for by the province of Ontario, that featured former President Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs.

“TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A.,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”

-      Trump Says He’s Cutting Off Trade Negotiations With Canada, NY Times 

 

By Gregg Wall (10-25-2025)

Heads I do private equity, tails I write about free trade… and free trade it is. 

  

Private equity will have to wait.  There’s so much to write about, in regards this evil and sinister force, private equity.  As for free trade, there was sniping coming from both sides of the American/Canadian border this week.  At issue, former President Reagan’s words, in favor of free trade & denigrating tariffs, were used by Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, in an ad campaign.  Mr. Ford ran ads in the United States quoting the deceased actor and U.S. president. Trump responded rather harshly to having Reagan’s words against tariffs and in support of free trade thrown into the nation’s face.  So late Thursday, Trump released a statement, something along the lines that tariffs are critical to national security and all trade talks are henceforth terminated.  Left out by Trump, conveniently so, tariffs aren’t so critical to national security… “national security” is an abused term often used to justify all kinds of nonsense and political machinations… but rather, tariffs are critical to funding the Billionaire Welfare Act or Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill.  

If there’s one thing King Trump is very serious about… see also the key reason, aside from Epstein, for the government shutdown... it's tax cuts, privatization schemes, war funding, and welfare for his rich friends and family.  Trump loves his second term enhanced regressive tariffs tax scheme foisted upon the American people to help keep the house of cards afloat and fund, in part, socialism for the predatory few.  Even though the debt, deficits, and dollar debasement continues at a staggering pace to the complete detriment of the nation and its people.  

But I digress, in summary, for the soon to be octogenarian, Trump, Reagan is still a big deal, as he is for many boomers.  Even though the median age in the U.S. is roughly 39 years old, which means for more than half of the American people, they have little or no memory of then-President Reagan.  Nevertheless, Reagan’s legacy, Thatcher’s legacy are manifest everywhere… see our abjectly failed dereg, free trade, libertarian model, and its dependence upon crippling debt, deficits, empire, and wars… see the explosive growth in the money supply to keep Wall St. entirely corrupt and well-lubed for the predatory few.  Reagan and Thatcher are a complete failure for the American people, Canadians, and the UK.

Nevertheless, Canada (more accurately, Premier Ford) rubbed an immortal American icon in Trump's face...

And Trump snapped or was he just looking to distract from his failed tariff polices, which are now coming home to roost within the inflation data, distract from the higher prices confronting the American people, who have been under attack for six long years by the forces of corporate & Wall St. greed?   The inflation report came out Friday and on a year over year basis prices are up another 3% (both core and all in), which doesn’t begin to tell the real story on nearly six consecutive years of price gouging and supply-side, Wall Street rip-offs.  

It's sort of amazing, just how frightened Trump is of a president from 45 years ago.   A president & PM Thatcher, whose ideas have been largely discredited, namely laissez-faire, libertarianism, supply-side, trickle-down, deregulation, and yes, free trade.  When Reagan came to office, America had a thriving middle class, the median price on a US home was $47,000.  As candidate Reagan was fond of asking:  Are you better off today than you were four years ago… or say in 1980?  Today, for the bottom 60% of Americans, the answer is a resounding: NO.  Reagan and Thatcher FAILED.

Because we are living with Reagan's fallout and failure: the apogee of Reagan's failed ideology is oligarchy, greed-rule, totalitarian monopolies, the elimination of competition & price discovery, and a destitute public (constantly under attack by kleptocrats, C-suite dictators, and pathocracy). 

Reagan's and Thatcher's fallout is now.

There's no such thing as free trade.  The closest thing to free trade is the idea that some nation has a natural advantage, perhaps conveyed by geography & weather, to trade in certain commodities. 

And tariffs can be a useful tool in trade policy... however, when corporations pursue labor, regulatory, gov, judicial, monetary, and tax arbitrage, it leads to a race to the bottom (aka free trade), globally.  Libertarianism kills jobs, free trade pits nation-state against nation-state for fewer and fewer jobs, globally, in a race to the bottom.  When libertarianism and its partner, free trade, takes hold, greed, monopolies, and pathocracy are the natural outcome.  Labor is attacked, relentlessly, living standards are in terminal decline, social services/public services are demolished, simply so the rich can steal more, and people stop procreating… simply because they can’t afford to feed their children.  Ultimately, blame Reagan’s rhetoric… those of us who still remember his presidency recall that Reagan didn’t actually rule by his radical right-wing economic words.  His actions would label him a democrat today; but unfortunately, his rhetoric was used by the radical right and Wall St for two generations of leaders to justify all manner of collapse, corruption, and Western decline (even to pull the Democratic party further right-wing).

Under free trade rhetoric, America gave away its economy, its tax base, its middle class, and in the long run possibly its dollar hegemony, so that a few evil men could grow catastrophically wealthy.  Which is where we are at today.  Trump's tariffs are failing, in no small measure due to Trump's complete lack of self-control... and largely because they are being abused against an American public to pay for welfare for billionaires and multinationals owned by billionaires.  Trump’s tariffs are being used against the American people, already under attack from decades of decline, economic malaise, and greed.

The solution was never to heap more taxes upon the American people; the solution was a windfall profits tax (& a wealth tax) aimed directly at America's billionaires, monopolies, predatory cartels, SV venture capital, and Wall St.  To wit, reshore the American economy or the taxation continues, with no pass through to the American public (that’s the power of windfall taxation, when correctly administered to the supply-side).  The problem is: America's totalitarian utilities, 45 years of Reagan/Thatcher, and a highly, highly corrupt American gov.  The problem is a 79-year-old president in a desperate race against time, who is crashing in the polls.

It's the supply-side, stupid: the monopolies and cartels, PE, and Wall St, who have concentrated wages and wealth into the hands of morally bankrupt, predatory few.   Attacking the public was never the answer.

 

 

 

Trump's tariffs policy is now revealed.  It was always about generating a new revenue stream or tax -- paid by essential, hardworking Americans -- in support of tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, privatization schemes, for profits wars, the billionaire welfare state. Trump has failed on affordability and obviously, that was never in the cards.  Trump began to reverse both his promises on affordability and ending wars, before he even returned to the White House.

And Reagan’s promise that offshoring the US economy, jobs, and opportunity, under the guise of free trade, like libertarianism itself, would lead to prosperity for all was a lie.  Americans see the wreckage and carnage of the Reagan/Thatcher revolution all around them… a U.S. in catastrophic decline.

Trump's thin skin continues to function to the complete detriment of the American people... but it points to something more, Trump is not interested in a fair & equitable trade agreement with Canada.  He, and likely many of his billionaire friends, still believes Canada should be part of the United States as part of a North American technate, corpocracy, or some insane scheme of authoritarian, billionaire rule.  Here, I would recommend visiting Whitney Webb’s site, Unlimited Hangout, where she and her team appear more prescient by the day.

The bottom line: Canada can't negotiate with a tyrant. Trump & America had the best of both worlds: a reliable trading partner, a trade surplus w/ Canada (sans oil & gas), and discounted Alberta oil & gas (exploited by Americans, subsidized by Canadians).  

But Trump is not content with that, he wants it all.  Reagan had a great many flaws, but one of his strengths was that he was capable of separating his actions and rule from his political rhetoric, from his economic ideology.  For instance, Reagan raised taxes 11 times.  Trump and the oligarchs clearly hold no such charm or pragmatism.  Trump’s solution is privatized profits and looting for a predatory few… unlimited austerity and taxation for everyone else.  Trump's solutions are purely transactional. 

The question before Americans and Canadians is: Are you better off today then you were two, three, and four decades ago… under failed political duopoly, the forces of greed, and a failed, completely failed free trade, libertarian paradigm?  Economic and trade policy that fails to take care of society is a disaster.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2025