When the Anti-Tariff Declaration was published on Friday, more than 150 economists signed on to oppose President Donald Trump's trade policy. Less than a week later, the number of signatories increased by an order of magnitude. Reason spoke with five of the economists who signed the declaration about what motivated their decision.
N. Gregory Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard University, tells Reason the most important takeaway from the declaration is that "economists are really united in opposition to the Trump international economic policy, [which] seems to be founded on a variety of very fundamental misconceptions about economics and economic history."
Michael Munger, professor of economics and political science at Duke University, says he signed because "tariffs are bad domestic policy, and bad foreign policy." Munger explains that the argument for free trade is unilateral: "If another country manipulates its currency, or has trade barriers, that is a harm to THEIR consumers. 'Wealth' is the ability to obtain high quality, low cost products."
