You hear lots of left-wing jabs in the news media that President Donald Trump's tariffs are going to ruin the American economy, but there are some surprisingly good reasons why the tariff policies are seeing some success.
Lone Star College, Texas, Economics Professor Hank Lewis says worldwide trading volume activity is up 4.4-percent over the past year, having grown from 2.5-percent growth in 2024.
But perhaps even more remarkable is the realignment of US trading partners as larger or smaller tariffs bring incentive for some nations to open up trade -- while other nations readjust their own policies..
Mr. Lewis says, "2024 and earlier, if you look for the typical top three destinations for exports they were China, Canada and Mexico".
"But the top three imports to the United States it was China, Canada and Mexico, in that order.
"And nowadays for exports it's Mexico, Canada and China for exports and it's Mexico, Canada and China for imports.
"So China has fallen to number three on this list of US import and export partners, while Canada has moved to number two and Mexico is taking over as number one."
He calls it a "very interesting shift," and when taken with the recent publicity about China's role in helping arm Venezuela, Iran and possibly Cuba, the Trump administration policies start to form a pattern.
There are the usual problems with economics, though, as some nations have changed the countries they do business with, which in some cases has increased transportation costs, so there's good and bad in the worldwide tariff policies' shifts.
Now the biggest goal of all the disparate policies is to reach an economic equilibrium, but that may take more time.