The first 100 days of the second Trump administration have been a whirlwind. And Stephen Miran, the chair of President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, has been at the center of what he calls “the volatility.” Trump has raised import taxes to levels not seen since the 1930s. And trade talks to roll them back — or not — are in flux, leaving the trajectory of the U.S. economy, consumer prices and global trade in limbo.
Miran, a Ph.D. economist trained at Harvard — who is renowned for floating the idea of a Mar-a-Lago Accord to “restructure the global trading system” — has been put in the position of explaining the president’s thinking and ultimate goals.
On Wednesday, just before the United States and Britain announced a framework for a trade agreement and ahead of trade talks this weekend between the administration and Chinese officials, Miran spoke with The Times’s Talmon Joseph Smith at his office next to the White House. And he stood by the president’s unconventional moves.
The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
You’ve said in public remarks that you are not on the negotiating team, but as an economist, do you believe that this country’s economy can sustain what the Treasury secretary has called the “embargo” levels of current tariffs on China?
Yeah, so look, the president has acted with historic scope and speed to put American workers on fairer ground vis-à-vis our trading partners. I don’t think anybody could possibly say that the policy adjustment was not historic or extraordinary. And as a result, there’s been volatility in financial markets. There can also be volatility in economic data, but I think it’s important to understand that volatility doesn’t necessarily mean anything greater for the long term.
And so is it possible that economic activity gets substituted from one month to another? Yeah. Are firms waiting to find out the outcomes of the negotiations? Yeah. Are they waiting to find out that the tax bill is being passed and that we’re going to avoid the biggest tax hike in history next year because the president’s 2017 tax cuts are not going to expire? Yeah, they’re waiting for that, too.
But when you wait on a decision, because you’re waiting for information, it doesn’t mean you’re putting off that decision forever.
On China, specifically, the president, in the last few days, has said we don’t even necessarily need to do a deal. That has left market participants I speak to very confused and consumers quite fearful.
So, the president has said two things. He said, one, he thinks we’ll have a deal. He’s said that many times. And two, we don’t need a deal. Those can both be true.
You all swept into office on the back of frustration regarding the cost of living and inflation. High up on that list was housing. So what is this administration’s policy to address the housing shortage?
Regulations throughout the economy hold back firms from producing what they could in order to increase supply. If you have not enough supply of something, if prices are too high, the best thing to do is just get the government out of the way and let firms make more of it. And that’s why the Trump administration is engaging in a whole-of-government deregulation drive.
The previous administration and some in Congress, on a bipartisan basis, were looking to commit to federal-led policies to, for example, give “carrots” to jurisdictions that decided to get rid of certain regulations and zoning in a way that could allow for more building, and to withhold those extra funds from jurisdictions that did not. Is there anything similar coming from you all in that vein, or do you see this as a state and local issue that doesn’t pertain to what you all do from the White House?
No, I see us as being able to encourage states and localities to follow us in our deregulatory agenda.
But I’m specifically asking within housing regulation and zoning.
It would be helpful if other jurisdictions followed suit.
Followed suit on what? Because maybe this is my ignorance, but I’ve not seen anything from this White House so far. Granted, it’s early.
No, you’re correct. You’re correct. You’re correct that it’s early and that we’ve been focused on trade. We’ve been focused on the tax bill.
Why did DOGE fail to meet its stated savings goals? Because there’s a shortfall from the promised trillions.
Even cutting hundreds of billions is, I think, a huge accomplishment. I think DOGE has done a fantastic job.
A big goal of this administration is to reshore manufacturing. We saw a manufacturing construction boom from 2020 or so to 2024. Since the fall, it’s fallen. Should we expect, as a barometer of success for this administration, that manufacturing construction surges again?
Manufacturing construction, I expect, will surge as a result of our policies. And by the way, it’s not just trade and isolation, it’s trade, tax and deregulation, right? And if you make the United States a much more competitive environment by providing further tax relief, by slashing regulations that make it easier to build stuff here, to make stuff here, and you start addressing asymmetries and trade through tariffs and negotiations and other policies, then you’re making the United States a more competitive place to do business.
Fixed-income investors based in Asia and Europe have told me they plan on gradually rotating out of U.S. assets, including bonds. Do you think they are exaggerating? Or that market commentators covering these moves are exaggerating the extent of it? And then second, do you all welcome a weakening of demand for the dollar?
So with the second, I have to direct you to my colleagues a couple blocks down at the Treasury Department. With respect to the first one, as I said before, it was really a historically extraordinary policy change, and the fact that there was financial market volatility as a result shouldn’t be surprising.
But when the dust settles, capital will follow investment opportunities. Investment opportunities are a function of economic opportunities, and that’s why President Trump is focused on creating the most dynamic American economy in history.
The president said in a “Meet the Press” interview: “We were losing hundreds of billions of dollars with China. Now we’re essentially not doing business with China, therefore we’re saving hundreds of billions of dollars. It’s very simple.” So that’s inaccurate, right? Do you, when you’re advising the president, feel comfortable redirecting or fact-checking him if or when he gets things wrong?
So I don’t think the president was wrong. You know, America was running a trade deficit. And if trade has come to decline, if trade with China has come to decline, then, you know, that portion of the trade deficit will be able to fall.
“We’re losing hundreds of billions of dollars with China. Now we’re essentially not doing business with China,” therefore, we are saving hundreds of billions of dollars? You think that’s an accurate representation of how to talk about trade deficits?
That’s how the president understands that. And I think that’s correct. I think the president’s correct.
Congress is trying to work its way through a budget right now. I know you’re not responsible for Congress, but the administration has talked about a commitment to lowering deficits, and yet it also wants tax cuts and a trillion-dollar defense budget. So how does that add up?
So a couple things. One is that higher growth will make up revenue. And I think that lots of people consistently underestimate that, and are consistently wrong. There was no evidence that there was a long-run decline in tax revenues as a result of T.C.J.A. — the president’s tax cuts. Growing the economy is one of the best ways to grow revenues, and that was the experience with the president’s first tax cuts.
How is keeping tariffs that are high enough to raise hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue consistent with the president’s promise to lower costs for businesses and consumers?
Because I don’t believe that the tariffs are ultimately going to really raise costs. I think that in the short run, volatility is possible, but in the long run, American consumers are flexible about where we import from, and if one country comes to a trade deal with us, by which they open their markets and allow us to export into their economy the way they export into ours, then we can source our production from friendlier countries, instead of countries that rip us off.
But a lot of experts in freight think that you’re wrong; that supply chains take months, if not years, to move, and so there will not be substitution, there will just be higher costs.
Instead of buying stuff from China, we could buy stuff from another country. Or we can make stuff here. We can shift our demand across borders. That makes us more elastic.
It’s true that we’re early, and it’s true that there can be volatility in the short term, but are we talking a few weeks? Are we talking about a few quarters? Are we talking about a couple of years?
You’ve hit on something that economists have never really been able to settle on. You know, the truth is that it’s going to vary from product to product, right? And some products, it’s probably relatively easy to switch suppliers. And other products, it may take years. And so, it’s going to vary.
Do we need to understand from this administration, and from you, that the president is dead serious about a reordering of global trade markets, and that there’s not going to be some major pullback from this stance?
The president has been clear that there may be disruptions. And he talked about the dolls — he’s talked about other things. I think he’s been upfront about this the entire time.
I guess, the concern about the dolls — where the president said that, rather than 30 maybe a young girl could only get, you know, a couple or three — is that people are concerned even more so about, you know, crucial inputs to U.S. manufacturers. Forty percent or so of them use imported parts or finished goods.
The president has said that there can be disruptions. And there’s lots of negotiations happening right now with almost 20 different trading partners. The president is one of the biggest, best negotiators in American history.
I’ve spoken with a lot of economists — plenty of whom I think you’re friendly with, as well as market participants, mostly in the bond market — who think that in order to take this position you’ve given up some of your intellectual integrity, and are willing to bend the facts and bend economic principles in service of the political goals of this administration. How do you respond to that view?
I think that’s ridiculous, and I think that it’s very common for people to project their own political preferences onto other people. You know, the administration is focused on creating a dynamic, healthy, robust economic boom for Americans — and we’re going to do that.
Thanks for reading! We’ll see you Monday.
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Source: nytimes.com
