The New York Times has excoriated President Trump for trying to disengage the US economy from our mercantilist reliance on cheap Chinese goods. But for all its enmity toward Trump and his trade policies, the Times is concurrently worried that Europe might find itself in an unfavorable trade relationship with China – a trade relationship like the awful one from which President Trump is trying to extract the U.S.
Other than being driven by intense, partisan animus toward Donald Trump, it seems inexplicable that the paper of record would be concerned about Europe surrendering economic sovereignty to China, while at the same time being passionately opposed to America exerting its own economic sovereignty. Isn’t the Times being hypocritical?
No, the NY Times is not being hypocritical. It is very consistent in being rabidly anti-American. Therefore, being concerned about Europe retaining an industrial economy while cheering against American industry is quite principled for the voice of the left. It may be vulgar and offensive, but it’s consistent with the Times’ America-Last principles.
First off, here are some of the typical recent headlines the NY Times has been running as it contemptuously covers Trump’s economic agenda:
“Trump’s Tariffs Will Wound Free Trade” [NY Times – 4/14/2025]
“Why Trump’s Economic Disruptions Will be Hard to Reverse” [NY Times – 4/28/2025]
“Trump’s Tariffs Prompt Wave of Lawsuits as States and Businesses Fight Back” [NY Times – 4/27/2025]
“Bracing for a Slow-Moving, Self-Inflicted Economic Storm” [NY Times – 4/25/2025]
But amidst those stories blasting “Trump’s tariffs” and his efforts to rebuild American industry, the Times ran this story:
Just a quick fisking of that headline and sub-headline is revealing.
“Europe fears a flood of cheap Goods from China.” I don’t blame them, because a flood of cheap Chinese goods has done great harm to America.
“A hazardous scenario for European countries: The dumping of artificially cheap products that could undermine local industries.” Correct! China dumping artificially cheap products on America has undermined local American industries. What is so telling is that the Times is OK with cheap, subsidized products undermining American industries, and they want it to continue. Their concern is that Donald Trump may make it impossible for China to dump on us any longer, and that China may start dumping on Europe instead. That is a problem to the NY Times.
Here is some of the body of that story.
China has for years presented an economic challenge for Europe. Now, it could become an economic disaster. It produces a vast array of artificially cheap goods — heavily subsidized electric vehicles, consumer electronics, toys, commercial grade steel and more — but much of that trade was destined for the endlessly voracious American marketplace.
Per the Times, it’s OK for China to dump subsidized goods on the U.S. because we have a “voracious” marketplace. Their fear is that Europe might also have a voracious appetite for goods subsidized by a communist country artificially supporting its manufacturing.
With many of those goods now facing an extraordinary wall of tariffs thanks to President Trump, fear is rising that more products will be dumped in Europe, weakening local industries in France, Germany, Italy and the rest of the European Union.
Again, the Times is OK with China having already weakened local industries in the U.S. Their concern is that Trump’s tariffs might cause China to weaken local industries throughout their beloved European Union.
“The overcapacity challenge has taken a long time, but it has finally arrived in European capitals,” said Liana Fix, a Washington-based fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “There is a general trend and a feeling in Europe that in these times, Europe has to stand up for itself and has to protect itself.”
So we’re now acknowledging that China has overproduction, that it subsidizes the dumping of its excess production on other countries, and that Europe has to stand up and protect itself. But for some reason these same people are apoplectic that Donald Trump and a majority of U.S. voters feel the same way about protecting the United States from China.
“We cannot absorb global overcapacity nor will we accept dumping on our market,” Ms. von der Leyen [President of the European Union] said as Mr. Trump’s tariffs went into effect.
You’re right, Ms. van der Leyen! And neither can the United States absorb global overcapacity, nor should we accept dumping in our market either.
“The worst-case scenario is high U.S. tariffs” while at the same time “China is flooding the European market,” said Noah Barkin, a senior adviser for the Rhodium Group, a policy research organization. He said that would be “a double whammy for European industry. That is what Europe wants to avoid.”
Can a Principled Free Trader please explain to me why it’s a “worst case scenario” for Europe to be both the dumping ground for subsidized Chinese products while also being the victim of having its exports blocked by high foreign tariffs. I’ve been regularly assured by Principled Free Traders that that exact scenario is a desirable occurrence when that double-whammy of dumping and protective tariffs is inflicted on U.S. manufacturing. Doesn’t Europe benefit from the same “lower consumer prices” that the free traders are always touting when they promote American surrender to foreign mercantilism?
But trade experts say the economic relationship between Europe and China is rooted in a decades-old reality: a Chinese marketplace that is effectively closed to many European companies because of regulatory burdens and the Communist Party’s buttressing of Chinese companies. The European trade deficit with China was nearly $332 billion (€292 billion) in 2023.
Again, Chinese trade barriers and government subsidization of industry, along with the resulting trade deficit are bad for Europe. Correct. They’re just as bad when the U.S. is being victimized by China.
There is much more in this article that keeps hammering these same points about how unfair Chinese dumping would be for Europe, which are coincidentally pretty much the same points Trump and MAGA have been making about unfair, unreciprocal, unilateral trade that destroys American industry and economic sovereignty.
Jeffrey Tucker asks the question in the tweet below, “I’m trying to understand NYT economics. How can what’s good for the US be an obvious disaster for Europe.?”
The answer, of course, is that the New York Times does not want what is good for the U.S. It conveys a globalist disdain for America and wishes it harm. Unfair trade with China that harms the US is good for the left’s ultimate vision for the U.S., but our country must be harmed economically for the left’s vision to be fulfilled.
I would also argue that all “conservatives” and libertarians who similarly preach unilateral surrender by the United States to foreign mercantilism are just as antagonistic to a strong, independent Unites States as is the New York Times and their crowd.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]