Outside the Beltway

The GOP and Donald Trump are indistinguishable now. But it’s not clear what that means.

Trump spent much of Tuesday praising a dictator who has murdered and imprisoned millions of people. Then he returned to attacking the democratically elected leader of one of our closest allies.

President Trump is setting off another trade war, this time with some of America’s closest and most important allies.

The transformation is complete. The GOP is now the party of Donald Trump. If you’re sticking around and not speaking out against what the President represents, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.

President Trump has announced that he’ll be imposing significant tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. This is an unwise decision.

President Trump has alienated America’s allies and friends, and they are acting accordingly.

John McCain has been standing out from his fellow Republicans largely by unleashing on President Trump, and it is unlikely to end anytime soon.

Without mentioning his successor by name, former President Bush delivered a stinging rebuke to Trump and Trumpism.

Donald Trump’s first overseas trip went about as badly as you’d expect it would.

Republicans held on to Mike Pompeo’s seat in the House, but the outcome was closer than many expected.

More stepping back from free trade and the established global economic order.

Yet more incoherent economic policy from the Tweeter in Chief. A border tax will mean that Americans will undoubtedly pay for at least part of the Great Wall of Trump™.

In a break with President-Elect Trump, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said Congress would block any effort to increase tariffs.

The idea that Donald Trump has gotten his racialized rhetoric from libertarians is simply errant nonsense. The libertarian view, broadly speaking, is not defined by Murray Rothbard, Llewellyn Rockwell, and Ron Paul and those who share their views. This is but a small and even fringe group of what could be called the libertarian community.

Donald Trump engages in some nice post hoc ergo propter hoc by implying that the decline in manufacturing jobs in North Carolina is due to NAFTA. Ignoring that other factors are more likely playing a far greater role in the loss of manufacturing jobs.

It is a misguided and foolish attempt to try and buy votes without appearing to buy votes.

There’s nothing compasssionate about protectionism.

On the left and the right, there’s been a resurgence of a long-ago discredited economy theory.

Some of the GOP’s top donors still aren’t sold on Donald Trump.

A US-EU free trade zone is a no-brainer. But the devil is in the details.

Bill Keith built a successful business making solar-powered ceiling fans. The President’s trade policies are in the process of destroying it.

Everyone’s talking about jobs again. And it’s not a pretty picture.

For the first time since the end of World War II, the GOP is wrestling with two diametrically opposed visions of foreign affairs.