Anybody who read “Trade”, Chapter 26 of Project 2025, could have foreseen the split and eventual purge of the Heritage Foundation, at least on the economic policy dimension (not that we knew which side would get purged). To say the chapter is schizophrenic is an understatement of the highest order. Peter Navarro wrote “The case for fair trade” while Kent Lassman wrote “The case for free trade”.

From Kent Lassman‘s (second) half of Chapter 26 (starts on page 796):

A CONSERVATIVE VISION FOR TRADE

The policy recommendations in this chapter reflect a belief in the strength of America’s founding institutions, its economy, and its people. They are based on data showing decades of American progress with all that this implies. They also reflecta realistic understanding of the fact that trade policy has limited capabilities andis vulnerable to mission creep and regulatory capture. Policymakers should be modest about what they can accomplish through trade policy and need to exercise constant vigilance against abuses. For example:

• Trade can lower consumer prices for ordinary Americans and open newmarkets for American businesses and their goods.
• Trade can help American workers and businesses to specialize in what they do best — which is how they outcompete the rest of the world in technology, manufacturing, agriculture, and other areas.
• In foreign policy, trade can help to preserve and strengthen alliances.

From Peter Navarro’s (first) half of Chapter 26 (starts on page 765):

Trade policy can and must play an essential role in an American manufacturing and defense industrial base renaissance. However, several major challenges in the international trading environment are pushing America in the opposite direction.The first challenge is rooted in MFN: the “most favored nation” rule of the WorldTrade Organization (WTO). According to the MFN rule, WTO members must apply the lowest tariffs that they apply to the products of any one country to the products of every other country.3 However, WTO members can charge higher tariffs if they apply these nonreciprocal tariffs to all countries.The practical result has been the systematic exploitation of American farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and workers through higher tariffs institutionalized byMFN. In turn, this unfair and nonreciprocal trade has resulted in chronic U.S. trade deficits with much of the rest of the world. This systemic trade imbalance serves as a brake and bridle on both GDP growth and real wages in the American economy while encumbering the U.S. with significant foreign debt.The second challenge is part of the broader existential threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its quest for global dominance. That challenge is rooted in the CCP’s continued economic aggression, which begins withmercantilist and protectionist trade policy tools such as tariffs, nontariff barriers,dumping, counterfeiting and piracy, and currency manipulation. However, Com-munist China’s economic aggression also extends to an intricate set of industrial policies and technology transfer–forcing policies that have dramatically skewedthe international trading arena.Both the unfair, unbalanced, and nonreciprocal trade institutionalized by the WTO and Communist China’s economic aggression are weakening America’s manufacturing and defense industrial base even as the fragility of globally dispersed supply chains has been brought into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic with its associated lockdowns and other disruptions and by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian revanchism, in particular, has demonstrated once again how bad actors on the world stage can use trade policy (for example, export restraints on natural gas) as a weapon of war.

The recend implosion of the Heritage Foundation has been well documented [1], [2], [3]. For me, the economic policy dimension is naturally of interest. Dr. EJ Antoni is now, in addition to Chief Economist, also acting direct of the Center for Data Analysis as well as the Thomas  A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies. I thought it useful to tabulate what economists are left remaining (with the recent return of Peter St. Onge).

• EJ Antoni, Chief Economist; Staff on Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget: Northern Illinois University Econ PhD

Center for Data Analysis

• Jonathan Abbamonte: George Mason University StatScience MSc
• Brian O’Quinn: Northwestern Econ PhD

Thomas  A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies

• Andrew Hale: Univ. of Edinburgh, MA Politics/Modern Hist
• Nicole Huyer:  Catholic Univ America, MA Finance
• Allen Mendenhall, W.VA JD, Temple LLM Transnational Law
• Peter St. Onge: George Mason University Econ PhD (newly re-appointed)

With Chief Economist Dr. Antoni’s pro-tariff writings (protestations notwithstanding), we know that the dirigiste side has prevailed.

Here’s commentary asserting that Heritage is doing outreach and appealing to populism, while Pence’s AAF is appealing to globalism. I find it amusing that tariffs are labeled “populist” by the writer, when (1) tariffs are a particularly regressive form of taxation, and (2) popular opinion is against the Trump tariffs.