200 Economists: “Costly protectionism should not be foisted on patients at home and abroad”

From an open letter to Mr. Trump:

A Buy America directive can also hamstring the ability of U.S. pharmaceutical and medical equipment manufacturers to meet our future needs if firms are denied access to essential foreign supplies. Moreover, we can expect our trading partners to adopt retaliatory “Don’t Buy American” barriers targeting U.S. exports as this type of retaliation is already occurring between other countries.

Some reporting at NPR and Politico, discussing Peter Navarro’s push to have an executive order issued. The Congressional Research Service has an April report on protectionist measures in place, and being considered. Chad Bown has outlined the counterproductive aspects of the administration’s efforts.

The signatories to the letter span a broad cross-section of economists.

 

8 thoughts on “200 Economists: “Costly protectionism should not be foisted on patients at home and abroad”

  1. pgl

    The economic logic of this letter is very compelling. I do have a few edits with respect to the following:

    The Honorable Lawrence Kudlow
    The Honorable Donald J. Trump
    The Honorable Mitch McConnell

    Let’s get real – some people are not honorable so please remove this term before these three jerks.

  2. The Rage

    America already has capacity in space for this type of production. The Trump administration already exported and sold products to Russia and Asia. Sorta a null and void post.

    1. Moses Herzog

      @ The Rage
      Your comment has no relation to reality. However, you are this blog’s leading authority on “null and void”.

  3. Moses Herzog

    This discusses Rick Bright, and the journalist in the NPR audio seems to indicate that there were efforts, or talk around the campfire that they were going to get rid of Bright long before the COVID-19 issues. I trust Diamond’s reliability as a reporter, so I think it’s very likely the move to get rid of Bright was in the works before the COVID-19. Before I heard this, I honestly thought Bright’s ouster was probably ALL about hydroxychloroquine.

    https://ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2020/05/20200513_atc_what_is_the_significance_of_rick_brights_whistleblower_complaint.mp3?orgId=1&topicId=1128&d=231&p=2&story=855611052&siteplayer=true&size=3688782&dl=1

    1. pgl

      Dr. Richard Bright is testifying before a House subcommittee. So decent questions from both the Democrats and Republicans. Except a couple of the Republicans have wasted time trying to get Dr. Bright to say hydroxychloroquine has saved lives. Fortunately, Dr. Bright has not agreed with their attempts to sell this snake oil. But I guess the Trump sycophants will persist with this insanity.

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