Trump wants to reduce regulations—everyone should help him

President Trump has made deregulation a priority and charged Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency with suggesting ways to cut red tape. Some progressives are cautiously supportive of deregulation. More should be.

From Jimmy Carter to Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), progressives once saw the wisdom of cutting red tape — especially if that tape tied the hands of consumers and would-be competitors in order to privilege industry insiders.

After the election, Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-Pa.) former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, encouraged Democrats to embrace “supply-side progressivism,” calling for “limited deregulation that advances liberal policy goals.” He pointed to successful Democratic candidates like Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine), both of whom have raised the alarm about overregulation.

Vice President Kamala Harris recognized that the regulatory state sometimes hurts those whom it is supposed to help. In campaign proposals to address the housing crisis, she vowed to “take down barriers and cut red tape, including at the state and local levels.”

Cautious Democratic support for deregulation may surprise those who think only of the Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) approach. Warren once claimed that “deregulation” was “just a code word for ‘let the rich guys do whatever they want.’”

In reality, regulations often help the rich guys at the expense of consumers and fair competition. New Deal regulations, for example, forced prices up in more than 500 industries, causing consumers to pay more for necessities like food and clothing when a quarter of the workforce was unemployed. Economists have documented similar price-raising regulation in agricultural, finance and urban transportation. In other cases, regulations require customers to buy certain products such as health insurance. Licensing rules protect incumbent service providers in hundreds of occupations despite little evidence that they protect consumers from harm.

More subtly, regulations can protect industry insiders by limiting the quantity of available services. State certificate-of-need laws in health care, for example, limit dozens of medical services in two-thirds of states, raising prices, throttling access, and undermining the quality of care.

That’s one reason why Rhode Island’s Democratic governor wants to reform his state’s certificate-of-need laws.

If you don’t believe that regulations protect big businesses instead of their customers, take a closer look at how firms lobby. In 2012, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association lobbied to maintain a ban on incandescent light bulbs. Why? Because it raised the costs of smaller, rival firms that specialized in making the cheaper bulbs. Local car dealerships lobby to preserve state restrictions on direct car sales, which limit potential competitors that sell online.

In international comparisons, researchers find that heavier regulatory burdens depress productivity growth and contribute to income inequality.

In the U.S., the accumulation of regulations between 1980 and 2012 is estimated to have reduced income per person by about $13,000. Since low-income households tend to spend a greater share of their incomes on highly regulated products, they bear the heaviest burden.

Progressives can help break the symbiotic relationship between special interests and overregulation. Indeed, they’ve often been the first to identify the problem.

Writing a century ago in his book “The New Freedom,” President Woodrow Wilson warned that “regulatory capture” would grow as government itself grew: “If the government is to tell big businessmen how to run their business, then don’t you see that big businessmen have to get closer to the government even than they are now? Don’t you see that they must capture the government, in order not to be restrained too much by it?”

The capture Wilson warned of took root. By the early 1970s, progressive consumer advocates Mark Green and Ralph Nader were noting that “regulated industries are often in clear control of the regulatory process.” The problem was so acute that President Jimmy Carter tapped economist Alfred Kahn to do something about it.

In his research, Kahn meticulously showed that when “a [regulatory] commission is responsible for the performance of an industry, it is under never completely escapable pressure to protect the health of the companies it regulates.” As head of the Civil Aeronautics Board, Kahn moved to dismantle regulations that sustained anti-consumer airline cartels. Then he helped abolish the board altogether.

Liberals such as Nader and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) supported the move. Kennedy’s top committee lawyer, future Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, later noted that the only ones opposed to deregulation were regulators and industry executives.

Their reform efforts unleashed competitive forces in aviation that had previously been impossible, opening up airline routes, lowering fares and increasing options for consumers.

It’s an embarrassing truth for both Democrats and Republicans that none of Carter’s successors, including Ronald Reagan, have pushed back as much as he did against the regulatory state.

Trump faces an uphill battle. He’ll stand a better chance if progressives acknowledge once again that lower-income Americans stand to gain from deregulation.

Related Topics:#FraserInstitute #GovernmentRegulations #MatthewMitchell DOGE GovernmentEfficiency RedTape TrumpDeregulation

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China’s economy takes a hit as factories experience sharp decline in orders following Trump tariffs

Published on April 30, 2025

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MxM News

Quick Hit:

President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports are delivering a direct blow to China’s economy, with new data showing factory activity dropping sharply in April. The fallout signals growing pressure on Beijing as it struggles to prop up a slowing economy amid a bruising trade standoff.

Key Details:

China’s manufacturing index plunged to 49.0 in April — the steepest monthly decline in over a year.
Orders for Chinese exports hit their lowest point since the Covid-19 pandemic, according to official data.
U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods have reached 145%, with China retaliating at 125%, intensifying the standoff.

Diving Deeper:

Three weeks into a high-stakes trade war, President Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy is showing early signs of success — at least when it comes to putting economic pressure on America’s chief global rival. A new report from China’s National Bureau of Statistics shows the country’s manufacturing sector suffered its sharpest monthly slowdown in over a year. The cause? A dramatic drop in new export orders from the United States, where tariffs on Chinese-made goods have soared to 145%.

The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index fell to 49.0 in April — a contraction level that underlines just how deeply U.S. tariffs are biting. It’s the first clear sign from China’s own official data that the trade measures imposed by President Trump are starting to weaken the export-reliant Chinese economy. A sub-index measuring new export orders reached its lowest point since the Covid-19 pandemic, and factory employment fell to levels not seen since early 2024.

Despite retaliatory tariffs of 125% on U.S. goods, Beijing appears to be scrambling to shore up its economy. China’s government has unveiled a series of internal stimulus measures to boost consumer spending and stabilize employment. These include pension increases, subsidies, and a new law promising more protection for private businesses — a clear sign that confidence among Chinese entrepreneurs is eroding under Xi Jinping’s increasing centralization of economic power.

President Trump, on the other hand, remains defiant. “China was ripping us off like nobody’s ever ripped us off,” he said Tuesday in an interview, dismissing concerns that his policies would harm American consumers. He predicted Beijing would “eat those tariffs,” a statement that appears more prescient as China’s economic woes grow more apparent.

Still, the impact is not one-sided. Major U.S. companies like UPS and General Motors have warned of job cuts and revised earnings projections, respectively. Consumer confidence has also dipped. Yet the broader strategy from the Trump administration appears to be focused on playing the long game — applying sustained pressure on China to level the playing field for American workers and businesses.

Economists are warning of potential global fallout if the trade dispute lingers. However, Beijing may have more to lose. Analysts at Capital Economics now predict China’s growth will fall well short of its 5% target for the year, citing the strain on exports and weak domestic consumption. Meanwhile, Nomura Securities estimates up to 15.8 million Chinese jobs could be at risk if U.S. exports continue to decline.

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Scott Bessent says U.S., Ukraine “ready to sign” rare earths deal

Published on April 30, 2025

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MxM News

Quick Hit:

During Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. is prepared to move forward with a minerals agreement with Ukraine. President Trump has framed the deal as a way to recover U.S. aid and establish an American presence to deter Russian threats.

Key Details:

Bessent confirmed during a Cabinet meeting that the U.S. is “ready to sign this afternoon,” even as Ukrainian officials introduced last-minute changes to the agreement. “We’re sure that they will reconsider that,” he added during the Cabinet discussion.
Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko was reportedly in Washington on Wednesday to iron out remaining details with American officials.
The deal is expected to outline a rare earth mineral partnership between Washington and Kyiv, with Ukrainian Armed Forces Lt. Denis Yaroslavsky calling it a potential turning point: “The minerals deal is the first step. Ukraine should sign it on an equal basis. Russia is afraid of this deal.”

Diving Deeper:

The United States is poised to sign a long-anticipated rare earth minerals agreement with Ukraine, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. According to Bessent, Ukrainians introduced “last minute changes” late Tuesday night, complicating the final phase of negotiations. Still, he emphasized the U.S. remains prepared to move forward: “We’re sure that they will reconsider that, and we are ready to sign this afternoon.”

As first reported by Ukrainian media and confirmed by multiple Ukrainian officials, Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko is in Washington this week for the final stages of negotiations. “We are finalizing the last details with our American colleagues,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told Telemarathon.

The deal follows months of complex talks that nearly collapsed earlier this year. In February, President Trump dispatched top officials, including Bessent, to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine to hammer out terms. According to officials familiar with the matter, Trump grew frustrated when Kyiv initially refused U.S. conditions. Still, the two sides ultimately reached what Bessent described as an “improved” version of the deal by late February.

The effort nearly fell apart again during Zelensky’s February 28th visit to the White House, where a heated Oval Office exchange between the Ukrainian president, Trump, and Vice President JD Vance led to Zelensky being removed from the building and the deal left unsigned.

Despite those setbacks, the deal appears to be back on track. While no public text of the agreement has been released, the framework is expected to center on U.S.-Ukraine cooperation in extracting rare earth minerals—resources vital to modern manufacturing, electronics, and defense technologies.

President Trump has publicly defended the arrangement as a strategic and financial win for the United States. “We want something for our efforts beyond what you would think would be acceptable, and we said, ‘rare earth, they’re very good,’” he said during the Cabinet meeting. “It’s also good for them, because you’ll have an American presence at the site and the American presence will keep a lot of bad actors out of the country—or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging.”

Trump has emphasized that the deal would serve as a form of “security guarantee” for Ukraine, providing a stabilizing American footprint amid ongoing Russian aggression. He framed it as a tangible return on the billions in U.S. aid sent to Kyiv since the start of Russia’s 2022 invasion.