MEDIA/TARIFFS/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “When President Trump tunes into ‘Fox & Friends’ on Monday [5-14-18] morning, he may see a familiar face delivering a gentle warning that tariffs are ‘B-A-D economics.’ In a last-ditch attempt to persuade Mr. Trump to back away from his trade approach, the National Retail Federation has enlisted Ben Stein, the comedic economist famous for his role in the 1980s film ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,’ to offer Mr. Trump economic advice via advertisements that will air on the president’s favorite TV network…Mr. Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs and his threat of levies on Chinese goods have spurred concern across industries, including agriculture, automobiles and retailing, which worry they will be caught on the losing end of a trade war. Businesses say Mr. Trump’s approach risks derailing America’s strong run of economic growth with a self-inflicted mistake on trade, one that will ultimately cause harm to consumers and the economy…Whether an ad campaign can sway Mr. Trump on tariffs remains to be seen, but there is evidence that it has had some impact in the past. A little more than a year ago, retailers took to the airwaves to try to kill a type of broad tax on imported goods, known as the ‘border adjustment tax,’ that Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker and a Wisconsin Republican, was pitching as a centerpiece of the Republican tax plan. The National Retail Federation blanketed television networks with catchy anti-B.A.T. commercials that claimed that the proposed import tax would hit consumers in their wallets.”
–Alan Rappeport, “To Sway Trump on Trade, Businesses Turn to Cable TV,” The New York Times online, May 14, 2018