➡ Peggy Hall discusses tariffs, explaining that they are taxes paid on imported goods, not attacks on foreign countries. She argues that tariffs can lead to corruption and are not the only solution to economic issues. Hall also emphasizes the importance of free trade and the service sector in the U.S. economy, and challenges the assumption that manufacturing needs to be brought back to the U.S., as it already exists in every major sector.
➡ The U.S. has shifted from a textile-focused economy to one centered on advertising and marketing, which is a natural progression for an advanced economy. Despite claims of a weak economy, the U.S. is the world’s second-largest exporter of products and has a strong manufacturing sector. Tariffs, which are taxes on businesses that often get passed down to consumers, were implemented by Trump in 2018 and resulted in a net loss of manufacturing jobs and an increase in small business bankruptcies. The article argues that tariffs are not the solution to economic issues and suggests that there are better alternatives.
➡ The article argues against tariffs, like those imposed by Trump on steel and aluminum, as they are harmful and confusing. Instead, the author suggests reducing trade barriers, lowering personal and corporate income taxes, and decreasing regulations to stimulate economic growth. The author also proposes incentives for industries and reductions in payroll taxes as alternatives to tariffs. The author believes these strategies will increase wages, create jobs, and improve living standards.

Hey friends, Peggy hall, back with you from thehealthyamerican.org just a short video here for you about tariffs. In fact, I want to give you a handful of superior alternatives. I think by now people realize that Caroline Lovett and Trump and Howie Lutnick were actually wrong when they said that tariffs were attacks on foreign countries or foreign companies. Think about is a tax on the item that is imported into the country and that tax is paid at the border or you don’t get your product. And that is paid in the United States directly to the Department of the Treasury.

And the Department of the treasury is headed up by Scott Besant. And I will do a deep dive on him coming up. By all accounts, he’s being referred to as the adult in the room and he’s the one that told Trump that he better pause on these ridiculous, outrageous, brutal, bullying, irrational. Oh my gosh, I have so many adjectives to describe this non strategy of Trump’s to kind of bully his way. Like he’s some kind of mafia boss, you know, inflicting a protectionist racket on people. Pay up or I’m going to break your legs. It’s very undiplomatic.

There are other ways of going about it. And Scott Bessant said you really need to pause on this. So by now people, people are back up to speed. I feel like I was one of the first people coming out talking about the truth about Tariffs. In fact have a whole playlist called the Truth about Tariffs. This happens to be an area of interest and fascination for me. I’ve got a master’s degree in international Policy studies. I’ve studied international trade, international relations. I am very fascinated by different political systems, economic systems. I’ve always asked the question, why is it that certain economic systems result in more prosperity and more well being and a more peaceful nation.

In fact more prosperity for the greatest number of people in the greatest number of countries. And that has been our capitalist system. And I know that it’s not perfect and there are a lot of examples of corruption and there will be more corruption with all of these tariffs. But suffice it to say this is an area that I’ve studied for some time. People were so angry when I pointed out that Trump and Levitt and others were wrong that they just said stay in your lane, Peggy, when well, this is my lane. So I’m happy to share the information.

So I have a couple of notes here just to make sure that we can clear up any confusion. Tariffs are a hike, tax hike on the individual who imports that product. And in the case of companies, they either will allow that to eat into their profits or they’ll pass that down onto the consumer. Likely. And often it is a combination of both. But suffice it to say Trump is wrong when he says that the countries are paying the tax, who are they paying it to? And who has the authority to tax another country? You don’t. By the way, the President does not have the authority to issue these tariffs anyway.

So that needs to be stated right from the outset. There are a couple of emergency laws that the Congress has ceded over to the executive branch. And Trump himself has called a fake, phony, fraudulent emergency, a national security emergency. But I ask you, what was broken that needed to be fixed? We are the world’s wealthiest country. We are the number one exporter in the world of services. We are a service based economy. I’ve done deep dives on previous videos. As countries and economies develop, they go through three main phases. And the first, the more rudimentary I suppose you could call it, would be the agrarian or agricultural society where people are growing food and eating it and then producing more as they’re able to do so, and as they become more sophisticated and wealthier and perhaps the population is growing, able to buy more sophisticated equipment and machinery and they can produce more food.

And then they move into the next phase, which is manufacturing. And the United States still maintains a very robust manufacturing sector. Now, there are raw materials that we do import from other countries. Those are called inputs into the economic manufacturing production. And there are also parts that are used, and then there are finished products that are made. And it is considered the hallmark of a more developed economy when you move from just mining the raw materials into creating parts and then creating finished products. And the United States does that quite well. We import a lot of raw materials and parts into the United States, create the finished product.

Because the United States has been a leader in innovation and research and development partly because of our own natural resources in this country, our own American spirit of innovation and development and creativity. And also we have a very large population and we’re quite a wealthy country. We also have a political system, by and large, that supports free enterprise and all of those. There are many other things as well. There are. There’s language, there’s the dollar, there are cultural values. But suffice it to say that the United States is most developed country in terms of its wealth.

And it moved on to the final sector, which is the service sector. Services are everything that’s involved. Where you’re you have not manufactured the product, but you’re supporting that product that was manufactured. So maybe you didn’t make the computers, but now you’re servicing them, you’re repairing them, you’re selling them, you’re marketing them. I did a whole video all about the service sector, and I can take an excerpt out from a longer video and replay that for you. But suffice it to say that being the number one exporter in the world of services to other countries is something that we should be applauding.

It’s not something that is a problem. When Trump says that the trade deficit is a problem and he only sees winners and losers, he is wrong. He’s got the losing proposition on that end. A trade deficit is nothing more than just a fact. It is not an economic indicator. You could also say some would argue that a trade deficit in certain areas is actually beneficial. I’ve given the example before, and I’m happy to see that a lot of people are using it on other channels. I run 100% trade deficit with my grocery store. I give them money and they give me products.

I import their products into my home. I do not require the grocery store to buy anything from me at all. And given that it’s a free market, I can shop at other grocery stores. I can shop around. I can find the product that I like at the price that I like and at the price that the vendor, that the producer is willing to sell it to me as the consumer. That’s economics at a very basic level. And I explained in a previous video as well that our entire everyday life is based on trade. You cannot live without trade.

I’m not just talking about international trade, but I’m talking about within your own life. Look at the clothes that you’re wearing. Did you sew that item of clothing? Maybe you did. Maybe you’re more creative and clever and crafty than I am. But did you spin the yarn into the fabric? Maybe you did. Did you build the spinning wheel or the loom that you used to create that fabric? Maybe you did. Did you grow the cotton and harvest the cotton in order to spin that into the fabric, which then you made into an item of clothing? And furthermore, did you manufacture the pair of scissors that you used to cut that piece of clothing? And let’s go a little deeper.

Did you not only manufacture that pair of scissors, did you mine the raw materials that went into that pair of scissors? No, you didn’t. And we can go on and on and on, and you may say, well, that’s ridiculous. But it’s a perfect example of how trade is a part of our lives. That’s why I was fascinated with economics, because it’s just a part of our everyday life. And history has shown that free trade, and of course, there are all different degrees of that. But moving toward reducing trade barriers has been mutually beneficial. And history bears that out.

We look at the facts, we look at the data, and we look at the evidence. And that’s why I want to share with you that tariffs are not the only answer to these problems that Trump and his cabinet are posing. First of all, we have to look at their assumption. They’re saying that we need to bring manufacturing back to the United States. I’m going to challenge that assumption and say I’m going to look at it from two points of view. Number one, we already have manufacturing in the United States. There is not a sector, a major sector in the United States, where we do not have manufacturing.

Now, it may be less expensive for you to buy an item of clothing from a different country, but we do have American manufacturers making clothing in the United States. We may not be a leader in textiles any longer. Why? Because we have moved on to advertising and marketing those products. There also are service industries where people are selling their clothes online. And that is the natural and desired progression of an advanced economy. So I would also argue that kind of going backwards and sort of insisting that Americans now are going to be working in factories is not necessarily the direction we want to go in.

There are plenty of factory jobs. If you want to work in one, I would encourage you to just do a search online in your own area and find out how many factory jobs are available in manufacturing, what the rate pay rate is. And the research that I did showed tens of thousands of jobs just in, in the state of Florid alone that are going unfilled in manufacturing. So in the first place, we already have strong manufacturing. We are the world’s number two exporter of products. I’ve done deep dives before where I showed you that we export gasoline, aircraft parts, automobile parts, all kinds of things.

So we are not a weak economy. I don’t know what Trump meant, what he said. We’ve been raped, pillaged, and plundered, and we’ve been ripped off, and people are taking advantage of us too long. Now, if you want to talk about the IP issue, the intellectual property that, yes, China has been stealing, that’s a separate issue. And unfortunately, tariffs aren’t the answer. So I want to talk about what the answer is. And I’ve Got several, well, just a handful of superior alternatives. So, again, we’ve cleared the air that the importer pays the tariff, not the foreign country, not the foreign company, and not the, you know, foreign exporter.

It is the individual or the company in the port. So when that. The port of entry for that product, nobody’s getting it until that money goes to the Department of the treasury, which, by the way, is a source of revenue for the federal government. So it is a tax on businesses. And that business is probably going to pass it down to you. Trump already did this in 2018. He started his trade war with China. I’ve done. Oh, my gosh. I’ve spent so many hours over the last several days analyzing what went on during that period of time.

And I just want to summarize it for you, because you probably don’t want to do the hours of research, but you can look into it as well. And it went back and forth, back and forth, pretty much as it is now. But what happened in 2018 was that there was a net loss of manufacturing jobs. Over 150,000 jobs were lost in the aftermath of Trump’s tariffs. He instituted them in 2018. Again, he has no authority to do so. The Congress really is the only one that has the authority to do this. And Congress is really weak in this situation here.

And it’s quite troubling to me. So in 2019, we saw, and many. I have a whole playlist for you, actually a whole list in that I did for you in a previous sub stack with the analysis in the aftermath of the terrible tariffs that he inflicted upon the country and there was an increase in bankruptcies of small businesses. It makes sense, right? You’re a small business. You’re importing some items. And I personally don’t care if you get them from China or Vietnam or Mexico or Canada. Why do I care where you are buying those? We are the wealthiest country in the world.

We are doing great. We have reserves beyond what we need. And for the other argument that this is putting our country at a national risk, well, there are other ways of mitigating that that I’ve covered in previous videos. In fact, importing raw materials is a smarter way of preparing for this national security risk, because why not use up the other resources of other countries? If you want to put it so blatantly and bluntly, rather than your own, why not eat someone else’s food that they’re willing to provide for you and you can keep yours for an emergency? For those of you that are arguing that we need to impose tariffs to boost our national security.

I don’t see it. And there’s no evidence for it. So tariffs are a tax hike on the American consumer. They definitely are. A tax on the company that then gives that money to the government. Why should they have to do that? It doesn’t make sense to me. Why can’t the company have the ability in a free market to select where they want to get their product and from home? And if you’ve ever run a business or worked in a business, you know that these supply chains, meaning finding your vendors, your suppliers who are going to provide you with that material, whether in your own country or in a foreign country, that’s built on relationships, those develop over time, and then suddenly all of that is just going to be damaged.

That’s what’s Trump. That is what Trump is doing. Not only damaging the supply chains, but damaging our reputation. Why would a company want to invest in the United States with all of this volatility and uncertainty? And even if a company wanted to invest in the United States, what bank is going to loan that company money in order to invest in the United States? You’re going to tell me. Well, all these companies are bringing back manufacturing. Some of them had that on the books before Trump was even president, and others only pledged to do so. So you have to think this all the way through.

It’s actually quite simple when you just apply critical thinking and logic. So let’s go on here. These companies are taxed and the money goes to the Department of the Treasury. So it is a type of revenue increase. People will say, well, why can’t we go back 100 years ago when these tariffs replaced our income tax? Well, the government was spending a lot less money 100 years ago. And 100 years ago, we weren’t a service economy. We were a manufacturing economy, as I described a few moments ago. And because the government was smaller and wasn’t spending as much money, they didn’t need to raise as much money.

I did a deep dive for you in a previous video. I’ll replay that for you. I’ll just pluck out that snippet. And I showed exactly the number of imports that we’re bringing into this country. Even if we were to do 100% tariff on every single import, it doesn’t even come close to replacing the revenue from income tax. I do want to share with you these superior alternatives. So let me just. So we talked about the deficit and why that’s not important. It’s not a good measure of the economic strength of a country. So I really hope that that Trump’s advisors are going to educate him and have him, number one, stop believing that these tariffs are paid by other countries.

And number two, that we’re going to win this trade deficit. It’s not something to be won. In fact, everybody loses. So the president doesn’t have the authority to issue tariffs in the first place. Also, speaking of the volatility, the next president that comes around can use another executive order and get rid of the tariffs. So that’s the volatility that makes the United States a less attractive place to do business. It also harms the strength of the dollar. It harms the bond market, the treasury bills. There are so many other intricacies that are involved in the issue of international trade.

Suffice it to say, moving toward reduced trade barriers has been the number one goal. You will ask, well, why do some countries have tariffs on the United States? We’re just reciprocating. We’re just retalia. Many of those tariffs were the result of Trump’s tariffs in 2018. And certain countries that are less developed than the United States, that are trying to get their manufacturing up and running, for example, in the garment industry, the government may give them preferential treatment and have tariffs on imports coming into those smaller countries to help that manufacturing get up off the ground. But normally that is temporary, and it is done in that second sector of economic growth, not when we are fully developed, as we are in the United States, the wealthiest country in the world.

It shouldn’t trouble us that Vietnam and Cambodia don’t purchase as much from the United States as the United States purchases from those countries. That’s what Trump is saying. In the nature of a trade deficit, it’s not possible and it’s not rational. So let’s talk about. We talked about challenging the underlying assumptions of even bringing back manufacturing. Is that really what we want to do? And if we do, let me share some ways that actually work. So, again, the historical record shows that tariffs hurt all economies. It slows the worldwide growth. It increases inflation. It drives up prices.

It actually reduces jobs. I told you that 150,000 jobs were lost in 2018, 2019, following Trump’s tariffs. He had to undo some of those because they were so bad. And then there was a net loss of about 75,000 jobs in the steel industry itself. And Trump had put tariffs on Steel of 25% and 10% on aluminum. It did not go well. So tariffs are not the way to go. Friends, here’s what to do. Instead of these harmful tariffs that hurt everyone, number one is you want to work toward reducing the trade barriers. Now, all of these countries that Trump talked about with his chart, which was illogical, irrational, done in a haphazard manner, it wasn’t even presented in an alphabetical order or in order according to tariffs or regions or anything.

It was very confusing. And I believe that was intentional to try to make people feel as though they couldn’t understand tariffs. Stick with me. I’ll continue to do this education. As I say, it’s an area of fascination and expertise for me. So these countries already have trade agreements with the United States. In fact, they are so complex and intricate that there are different tariffs, for example, on a blouse coming into the United States than a pair of pants from the same country. There are different tariffs imposed on sugar depending on the quotas and the type of sugar and how refined it is.

So the complexity of the tariffs is quite extensive. And to slap just haphazardly a 10% across the board doesn’t make sense. These agreements were hammered out over months, in some cases years, by individuals that were quite sophisticated and adept at doing this. So it is very troubling to me, number one, that Trump is violating these agreements that are already in place. If you wanted to renegotiate these, then you can dispatch your diplomats and your trade experts to renegotiate them. What’s wrong with that? This bloviating showmanship really looks very just juvenile and second rate. It is not presidential in my mind.

So working toward reducing trade barriers benefits everyone, and that is step number one. Step number two is to reduce income taxes across the board, not just corporate taxes, which I will put as number three. We need to reduce corporate taxes so that the companies then have more money so they can reinvest in their company, they can grow, they can hire more people, they can engage in research and development. They can come out with better products, more competitive products at a price that people are willing to pay and that they are willing to sell it for. That is how the economy works.

But these corporate taxes need to be reduced so that companies have enough to actually reinvest and help the economy grow, including manufacturing companies. Now, when we talk about personal income taxes, that’s very important as well. Think about it. You may be in a tax bracket where 50% of your money is going to the federal and the state government combined. Maybe you’re like me and you’re a small business owner, right? The healthy American is a business. I’m taxed on my personal income. Income. I’M taxed federal. I’ve got to pay federal taxes on my personal income. So I have state taxes, I have federal taxes.

And then on the business, I pay corporate taxes. So I am taxed three times on the money that I make. If I’m lucky, I’m keeping 50 cents out of every dollar. Imagine if I was able to keep $0.60 or $0.75 or $0.80. I could expand the Healthy American. I could hire researchers, I could hire editors. I could have all those fancy graphics. I could have a lot more of my content. Although you’re telling me that I, I am providing quite a bit. And that’s because I am dedicated to the truth. I am here at your service.

I am in service to the good Lord above and to bringing you the truth and information and encouragement so that we can stand up against these deceivers and those who are trying to tyrannize and oppress us. But think about if you had more money in your pocket that you earned, whether that is from income from a job, maybe you own an apartment, maybe you are renting out an income earning property and maybe you are selling something on Etsy. And wouldn’t it be awesome if you were able to keep more of that money, if you were able to keep more of your Social Security check of what you get from your investments, if you had more money, what would you do with it? Would you just keep it in the bank? Most people would spend it.

They would go on vacation, they might buy a different car, they might remodel their kitchen, they might donate to charity. Charities are completely hit by these tariffs because people are going to have less money and most people will donate to charity when they have a little bit left over or their charitable contributions start to shrink because it was money now that they have to use to pay for their own food and gasoline. So reducing income taxes, in my view is the number and not just my view, but economically speaking, is a wonderful driver of the economy.

Then people want to buy more things. There can be more manufacturing and all those factories that Trump wants to bring back, that’s an important way of doing it. So working toward reduced trade barriers, reducing personal income taxes, reducing corporate income taxes. And the next one I think is one of the most important that has nothing to do with tariffs and that is decreasing regulations. Regulations strangle manufacturing in this country. Stay tuned. I will have a video for you where I’m going to do a deep dive all about these carbon capture and carbon tariffs that I hope Trump is going to do away with and the EPA and So many other regulatory agencies make it so prohibitively expensive to do business.

Manufacturing in the United States. Not just expensive, but difficult. There are companies that have regulatory compliance departments. They have to hire people and pay them to keep on top of all of the paperwork that the government requires. Now, later, I want to bring my husband on. We’re going to have a conversation because he is a little bit more like some people saying, well, I don’t know what’s so wrong with tariffs. And then we start having the conversation and he’s like, oh, you know what? I really know where you’re coming from. He’s going to talk about working in a manufacturing.

It’s not so much it. We’re going to talk about how it evolved from manufacturing to production to services, because that’s the hallmark of an advanced economy and a well established, thriving economy. The United States, number one wealthiest country in the world. Nothing was broke that had to be fixed by throwing a bomb on the country. You want to fix a few things in these intricate trade deals, go about it with diplomacy and expertise, thoughtfully, intelligently, not like a bully, not like a mafia don boss that is trying to enter into some kind of protection racket. It just doesn’t suit us as Americans.

All right, so promoting the reduction of trade barriers, reducing personal income taxes, reducing corporate income taxes, decreasing regulations. Now there’s also something called 100% bonus depreciation. That is an accounting maneuver and a law that is going to be sunsetted out unless the Congress votes to keep these tax cuts. And that allowed a company to basically write off a hundred percent depreciation on certain things in the first year, which meant instead of waiting and depreciating it over 20 years or more, they could use that money again to invest back into their company, hire more people, reducing unemployment, increasing wages.

So that is a step in the right direction. Now, the government could offer certain incentives to certain industries and that is done in other countries. So that definitely could be done. It could be done at a local level. It could be done at a city, a county, a statewide level. If the state wants to offer some deferred taxes or some kind of favorable incentives to certain manufacturers that want to set up shop in that state, I’m all for it. None of that includes these harmful, destructive, disastrous, terrible tariffs. There could be a reduction in payroll taxes.

There are other incentives. These are the most important ones that come to mind. These actually drive economic activity. They increase wages, they add more jobs, and they result in more productivity and a higher standard of living for the most people in the most countries. Why ignore these tried and true strategies? That’s pretty funny how I said that. Why ignore these tried and true strategies for the strange, bizarre? Whack a mole of tariffs that only harm everyone involved as history clearly shows. All right, friends, I hope that I could clear that up for you. I will continue to share information about tariffs, and I thank you for increasing your knowledge and keeping an open mind and looking at history and the facts and the data so that we can make sure that we don’t have the wool pulled over our eyes and we can read between the lies.

And I will cover all of this for you in my substack over at peggyhall Substack. Com. See you soon, everybody.
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