American Thought Leaders - Impact of Trump’s Trade, Tax, Energy Policies | Mark Skousen

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

“As an economist, it’s extremely important to look at the data, rather than just on a theoretical basis,” says Mark Skousen. “We should be in a recession. Well, we’re not in a recession; looks like we’re coming out of slow growth, which is really important.”In this episode, I sit down with economist Mark Skousen to discuss taxes, tariffs, trade, and energy.“I think somewhere in between what the Fed wants and what Trump wants is a more reasonable approach to keep this economy on an even keel,” says Skousen. “The other thing that’s really positive is President Trump’s support for nuclear power, the small nuclear power plants, which don’t cost as much and can be done much more efficiently. This is a breakthrough.”We also discuss his latest book, “The Greatest American: Benjamin Franklin, The World’s Most Versatile Genius.”“There were many critics of Franklin, but he had a very interesting point of view. He said enemies will teach you a lot about yourself,” says Skousen. “So, you should be grateful for the enemies you have.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

As an economist, it's extremely important to look at the data rather than just on a theoretical basis. We should be in a recession. Well, we're not in a recession. Looks like we're coming out of slow growth, which is really important. In this episode, I sit down with economist and professor Mark Skowson to talk about taxes, tariffs, trade, and energy. The other thing that's really positive is President Trump's support for nuclear power. the small nuclear power plants, which don't cost as much and can be done much more efficiently. This is a breakthrough.

We also discussed Skousen's latest book, The Greatest American, Benjamin Franklin, the world's most versatile genius. There were many critics of Franklin, but he had a very interesting point of view. He said, enemies will teach you a lot about yourself. So you should be grateful for the enemies you have because they tell you what you need to know that you haven't thought of. This is American Thought Leaders. And I'm Janja Kellick.

Mark Skousen, so good to have you back on American Thought Leaders. My pleasure, Jan. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be fun. It is. And we've just got some new data. We've got an Epic Times headline. The U.S. economy surges 3% in the second quarter. Topping market estimates. What's your reaction? Well, I've been a reluctant bull. I'm fully invested in the stock market. The stock market is also suggesting that the economy is doing really well, despite the efforts by the Fed to keep interest rates high.

And, you know, the whole issue on the trade and how that's going to affect production and productivity and that sort of thing. So I've been a skeptic, and so I have to admit, I'm surprised by the data The data's been looking good in the last few months. We've avoided a recession that most economists had been predicting because of the tight money policy. After easy money, usually you have a boom bust, and there's been no bust. So maybe Trump is doing the right thing in so many ways, especially in the tax bill, which I think gave a lot of incentives.

And also in the tariff wars, you're seeing a lot of money moving back into the U.S. Although the dollar's been weak, so it's really hard. You have these mixed signals that are going out there to some extent. On net balance, things look pretty positive. Well, I definitely want to talk to you about the tax bill. You have some advice from your newsletter that I noticed, a whole bunch of goodies that were found in there for people to take advantage of. Yeah, 16 real great benefits from the tax bill.

That's right. Before we go there, let's just talk about capital expenditures. Last week, Treasury announced that the capital expenditures are strong and actually surging in the last half year. And see, that's a new trend also because for almost over a year, business spending, business investment, if you look at the breakdown of GDP of gross domestic product, you can see that consumption has been growing rapidly,

government spending has been growing rapidly, but business has been tepid. And there was actually a recession there last year. It was a mild recession in business spending. And business spending is the key to economic growth, and I've tried to demonstrate that with my gross output statistic. So that's why I was worried in my last press release on gross output. It was growing at a very slow pace.

But that seems to have changed. And as an economist, it's extremely important to look at the data rather than just on a theoretical basis, We should be in a recession. Well, we're not in a recession. Looks like we're coming out of slow growth, which is really important. I'll go back to Ronald Reagan. In 1983, the real GDP grew over 8% under Reagan.

And Trump would love to see that kind of a rate, but we'll be happy with a 4% rate, which is a more traditional demonstration of economic growth. Well, one thing that Trump is very unhappy with was the response of the fact that to the economic numbers, which is basically to keep things the same. And there's even this historic dissent, I think the first time since 1993, that there are two of the people in the Fed have basically said they don't agree with the decision publicly. Yeah, well, the interest rate strategy,

that's what the Fed focuses on rather than the money supply, which I think is a mistake. But in terms of interest rates, why not let the bond market tell us? what to do and actually yields have been coming down slightly and mortgage rates have been coming down slightly so that suggests that maybe you could cut interest rates but i wouldn't go overboard because the biggest problem with the federal reserve over the years is that we've created a boombuss cycle through easy money type money easy money type money and we've gone through a period of easy

money after with the Biden administration, interest rates were declining and so forth. And then afterwards in the in, in, uh, 23, 24, you saw interest rates move back up, inflation taking off and so forth. You want a stable Fed policy. That's really the key. And it sounds like President Trump wants an easy money policy, which always leads to a boom bus cycle. So I think somewhere in between what the Fed wants and what Trump wants is a more reasonable approach to keep this economy on even keel, let the tax cuts and deregulation drive the economy rather than artificial low interest rates. Well, and so what is the impact of the new tax policy? On that basis, I think it's fantastic. I listed in my newsletter, forecasts and strategies, 16 parts of the bill that were

beneficial in terms of lower rates and making new opportunity, you know, financing debt can be done. You can depreciate the tools and equipment and capital goods on a much faster basis. That's all beneficial. And maybe that's why the CAP-X is going up so dramatically in anticipation that we're benefiting from those tax breaks. You know, the other thing, I know, we were talking about when we were chatting earlier, is it just about energy policy? There's a, you know, kind of a huge shift in that, actually. In two ways. One is fossil fuels, oil and gas is back. In fact, this deal with the European Union, I don't know if it will happen or not, but they're talking about the EU importing a lot

of U.S. oil and gas. And that's such a switch from the typical experience. environmentalists that the Europeans have had, that we've got to go to alternative energy and we're not going to adopt nuclear power and so forth. The other thing that's really positive is President Trump's support for nuclear power. The small nuclear power plants, which don't cost as much and can be done much more efficiently, this is a breakthrough. In my newsletter, we're now recommending uranium stocks after a major pullback. And so uranium stocks and nuclear power stocks are moving back up. So it's a great, I think it's a really good investment area. This EU-US trade deal, I don't know if it's been, you know, kind of properly thought through

like what it actually means in the grander scheme. I wasn't expecting something like what happened at all because of this sort of animus or different, very difference in approaches, big difference in approaches. But it seems like if this deal holds, this is a very kind of powerful new trade block, it seems, to counter the kind of China-centered trade block which has been developing. So trade deals take years to actually sign on the dotted line. So these are just tentative agreements, verbal agreements, if you will. I don't know what the final outcome. In fact, these trade deals that Trump has announced is often contradicted saying, well, no, no, we actually didn't agree to this or that or what have you. So there's a lot of uncertainty that's part of it.

And one of the dangers, of course, is to what extent is President Trump a protectionist and creating a wall now when we have had this 100 years of increased globalization and trade, world trade, has been increasing. But it's topped out since COVID. And there is worry. And as an economist, I'm a free trader, I'm a strong advocate of free trade, and I think on net balance we benefit. In fact, Ben Franklin, I agree with Ben Franklin who said no nation was ever ruined by trade. On net balance, it's a good deal. Despite the disruption that will occur because of trade. But I am concerned about these trade policies that are, we normally, we were close to free trade for a long period of time. And now we're seeing tariffs

of five, six times more than what we're used to. We don't know what the full impact of that is on consumer prices, on disruption of the supply chains. These are serious issues that concern all economists. If I can push back a little bit on that, I don't believe that we were in a free trade. I believe that the US idea was pushing free trade. But of course, there were many countries

that were doing some semblance of free trade. The Communist China was kind of the opposite. It was the most extreme protectionist industrial policy pushing and basically kind of using monetary policy and trade as a weapon, using the World Trade Organization as a weapon, never adhering to the guidelines, but using the guidelines as a weapon against the countries who are actually doing that. I think, I mean, I can't even think of a single example where they've actually had to deal with the World Trade Organization, sort of enacting some sort of judgment on them. And it resulted in the largest transfer of wealth, probably in world history from the U.S. to Communist China. And there's an investment of $55 billion a year just by Apple into communist China into their own system. So it's like it's a, it was, I think it was a wildly distorted situation. That's my view. I'd love to get you to comment on that.

Well, I'm a little more charitable in that regard because I think it gave hope. for millions of Chinese for the first time who were working for a dollar a day and now are seeing the possibility of becoming rich, right? So you have to be careful that even though it enriched the Communist Party, it also enriched, it created a middle class. When I first went to China, everyone was on a bicycle. Now they're driving cars and motorcycles and that sort of thing. So there's definitely progress, and there are billionaires now in China. And I actually think this is going to be the source of political disruption in China that they eventually cannot ignore the wealthy class anymore,

and they can't just suppress them in political speech and so forth. So I actually see a revolution occurring in China that will open up the economy, open up the political side so that we move more toward democracy. The other thing is we keep forgetting that, the benefits to the consumer for these Chinese products, I mean, the cell phone that we all have, right, made in China, or actually 30 countries are involved in the production of this product. But it's put all together. The final product is made in China. So the price for this product is substantial or less. If this thing was made in the U.S. would be over $10,000 each. We can't

ignore the benefits of the supply chain being international. And you look at Target and Walmart and Costco and even U.S. cars, you know, 40% of components of U.S. made Fords, Chrysler's and and Chevroletes and so forth, 40% come from outside the United States. Are we going to cut off that part of the world? I think that's a very dangerous policy. So, there's an extreme element of the America First policy that we better be careful with. So I understand the political issues and how the Chinese Communist Party has taken advantage of this situation, but let's not forget the economic benefits to the average Chinese person probably loves America more than you think. I mean, my experience of China, the Chinese people

love Americans. And we don't want to lose it. Same thing with Iran. The Iranian people who I've met love Americans. It's just the government that's a problem. In my mind, there's two groups of countries. Like, there's countries that kind of play by the rules. I'm just thinking about how the Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently was talking about this. We're just looking to have, you know, kind of fair relationships with other countries. And I suspect there's a lot of countries that are interested in doing that. They're largely playing in this, let's call it, you know, rules-based international order. People don't like that term, but it's basically governments that are interested in following the rules at some level, and, you know, of

course, skirting them as well when they can get away with it for their own benefit. That's kind of the normal situation. But then you have very extreme violators, which kind of view the whole system in contempt and are seeking purely to exploit it for their own ends to achieve hegemony. Now I'm going back to talking about communist China. So it's like it's like you would take a very, very different approach to the people that, you know, you can kind of figure out how to work with and leverage and other ones which are actively seeking to subvert you. I'll give an example, okay, solar panels would be a really good example, but this has happened so many times it's almost uncountable. Come into the U.S., basically dump, go below cost, drive all

the American manufacturers out, and then, you know, kind of own the market, and then have the ability to insert all sorts of, you know, sort of spying components into, you know, everything, American routers, American military equipment, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So do you see what I'm saying? Like it's a different approach when you're, when your, your purpose is to use the economic system as part of your national security strategy, as part of your, you know, actual aggression as another model. It's called unrestricted warfare, right, as a model, as a way to actually kind of, you know, attack someone you perceive by your own word. by your own rhetoric as the enemy that you seek to subvert versus, you know, just trying,

kind of trying to come up with a deal together. You know what I'm saying? Well, and you make some good points there that is really focuses on non-tariff trade barriers. 100% that are a real problem. And I've been talking to a number of U.S. manufacturers, and this has been their biggest problem. it's not so much tariffs, sometimes tariffs are an issue, but a lot of times is they just don't let the product in at all because there's a licensing agreement. You have to have these particular regulations, whether it's food or milk or whatever, you know, agricultural products and that sort of thing that are restricted. So I actually think that if Trump focused more on those issues, on the non-tariff trade barriers trade barriers the u.s could make and i think he's doing that i think

there's a lot of emphasis on reducing the trade barriers generally speaking and in fact china is worse than the u.s in that respect it's way down that that list but i was kind of surprised to see the u.s which has two to three percent tariffs but apparently you can't put certain products in california you know there are these state rules there's 50 states out there that have all these rules and regulations. And that is really a key factor involved. And there's also the spying and all these other things that you've raised where there is a war going on.

There's no question about that. And it's a Cold War, in a lot of ways, similar to that, except different players at work here. One thing that we also discussed a little bit earlier, which is a really kind of interesting question, which I haven't heard covered. a lot, is the fact that the tariff policy is something that's actually heading to the Supreme Court. And, you know, depending on what the Supreme Court decides, it could actually change

the whole situation quite significantly. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up because in talking to a number of political or judicial experts, they think the Supreme Court will have to rule on this issue. The federal courts have been pretty universal that President Trump over, he exceeded his authority in using these wartime and economic emergencies, you know, just to declare everything in emergency is a little dangerous policy, because if you do that, you basically have a one-man dictatorship with these executive orders, and there's no limit to how often you can do this. And we're not that, you know, as Ben Franklin said, it's a republic if you can keep it.

which means representative government, and you look at the Constitution, which the Founding Fathers set up, and we're here in Washington, and you see we're on constitutional avenue, right? Constitution Avenue. And what does the Constitution say? Article 1, Section 8, clearly identifies as Congress, not the executive, not the judiciary, to decide tariffs and trade and duties and that sort of thing. And are we completely going to abandon that? Because that's what we've done at this point. We've led it to be an executive decision. So the federal courts have ruled pretty unanimously that Congress has to play a role here, a pretty significant role.

So it would be interesting to see if the Supreme Court simply says let the lower court decision decide if that's the fact. And if that's the case, you're talking about huge refunds to America. corporations, and by the way, it's American corporations who pay the tariffs. They're the ones who write this check to the Treasury, not foreign governments. Now, foreign countries will work with companies so that they pay part of it indirectly. So that sort of thing is going on right now. And this is why prices have not particularly gone up very much in the U.S. so far, because deals that are being made between the importers and the exporters, each one taking a little bit of the cost. So, yeah, this could be a constitutional issue coming up here, and it could be a really major one.

This is the type of thing that Supreme Court decisions they see as an important role that they play to make sure that the president knows his limitations. A man's got his nose, limitations. Right. Well, it is interesting. You know, it is, it is communist China itself that has declared, or the leadership that has declared that it's in a people's war with America. I think it's just something that that Americans are not typically as aware of because, as

you said, it's something, it's a different approach. It's this, what's called unrestricted warfare. So I think there is, there is some, yeah, I do think there, it is an actual real emergency situation. On the other hand, on the other hand, you know, the Congress obviously needs to play a significant role for exactly the reasons that you just described. It just, it seems it takes a while and it seems like they have a, they need to go through a lot of deliberation on any issue, right? So maybe this is, maybe this is a kind of a combination, get things started with executive

orders. I mean, we're just saying, right, like, despite some of the challenges that you just described, You know, the capital expenditures are up. People are thinking, hey, this is a good investment environment. Despite, you didn't know immediately what the impact of this sort of tariff regime would exactly be. Remember, trade needs to be win-win, not win-lose. And maybe it's been win-lose to some extent in the past, and we can make it win-win. But that's the ultimate goal is to be winners on both sides.

I've been quoting Ben Franklin because of my book, and Ben Franklin once said it is my hope that all nations, all peoples, will see the benefits of liberty and the importance of the rule of law so that I can go to any country and say, this is my country. And I'll tell you something that was interesting. Just a couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump had a press conference in the Oval Office, and he had the Hudam bust of Ben Franklin in the Oval Office. I think he was channeling Ben Franklin's diplomatic skills to maybe negotiate better deals and stuff. And I think his rhetoric has actually been subdued a little bit because he's dealing directly with these individuals. And I'm very

hopeful that the end result will be very positive for all countries. You know, you don't want a situation on the Mexican border, for example, where you've now laid off hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers on the border producing automobiles and stuff like that, just so the Americans can now produce more automobiles. That's win-lose. Well, I'll quote the Secretary of State Marco Rubio again. I believe, you know, he's basically saying what we're really trying to do is have some semblance of reciprocity. We'll see how that plays out. Yeah. I think that's what he was saying. The other thing is, you know, there is a very significant skilled labor shortage and that's actually, you know, in the United States. In the

United States. No, 100%. So, you know, it would make perfect sense, right? Of course, you know, if that labor can't be found among Americans, which, you know, there's also a whole bunch of men who should, could be working, who aren't for some reason. And this is something that America needs to solve. I don't think there's any problem with immigration. The point is You just have to do it the right way. We need a liberal work visa program so that foreigners can come in who have expertise, and they get a green card, and they get it fairly efficiently. This may sound extreme, but I'm not in favor of quotas.

I'm in favor of an open border policy with certain requirements, right? So if you come in the United States, you need a work permit, so you have an arrangement, a legitimate business job. You don't have a criminal record. You're in decent health. You agree not to take welfare. If people are willing to do that, and I'm sure they would in large numbers, we could fulfill that shortage that's a problem in maintain a high level of productivity. Our birth rate is slowing. So there's a lot of reasons why a vibrant melting pot, which America is famous for, you know, you go to Japan and you go to China and so on, you only see one race. And one of the great things about America is we have that diversity. And we've been pretty successful

since the Civil War. You raised some incredible points. And I think a key part of that is this melting pot policy that I think has been kind of forgotten for a while and created, you know, kind of some of the huge challenges. But let's talk about that in other times. You don't have a ton of time. I really want to talk about this, the greatest American. You started talking about it earlier. But I stopped you. How was Trump, in your view, channeling from the bust of Benjamin Franklin? Yeah, I was really quite surprised when I saw that, because he does have a portrait of Ronald Reagan for the tax cut and that sort of thing. But he brought in the Ben Franklin bus. and Ben Franklin, I call him the greatest American

because I came up with 22 careers. And by the way, my book is not just a typical biography that just gives this whole life. There's plenty of biographies that have already done that. They're really excellent. Mine are 80 chapters on various ways to apply what Ben Franklin learned, the lessons that you can learn on taxes,

personal finance, business. I have all kinds of chapters on that, that, on the trade war. He said, no nation was ever ruined by trade. You know, these kind of comments, he's actually influenced a lot by Adam Smith and his system of natural liberty. There's even a chapter on leisure and personal life and his hard-to-governed passions, his love of women, some of them sometimes accused of being a womanizer and so forth. I deal with all these issues. So Franklin is a unique character. He's on the $100 bill for a good reason. He does, he's a very good symbol of America. And the other thing that's really good about him is that

both Republicans and Democrats, when I speak in front of large groups, they all love Franklin. And I'll give you two quotes for Franklin that I think you would appreciate. One is a virtuous and industrious people may be cheaply governed. So do we have cheap government today? Well, probably not, But what does that say about us as a virtuous and industrious people? Maybe we need to work on that. And the second quote is really important. He says, the system of America is commerce with all and war with none. And that's very idealistic, obviously, but one that everybody can agree with.

That sounds Trumpian to me, don't you think? As long as the commerce part, that's the real crime. But he's very good at trying to end these wars. I love how he comes out and warns people. Look how many people were killed. We need to end this. This was unnecessary deaths, and I like that a lot. But I'll tell you one other quote, which is very appropriate for budgets and issues like that,

no revenue is sufficient without economy. Now, you can bring in all the revenue you want, but you're not going to solve the national debt problem unless you start living within your means. So we need to pull back and get to a surplus, and we're pretty far from it. I like what he did with Doge and so on. I hope we can do more of that. So his heart is in the right direction, and let's see if that's fulfilled. So the Ben Franklin book, I say, this is a great coffee table book. You put this out on the coffee table, the greatest American, and let people think and have a

discussion. And in most cases, you won't get any arguments. You'll get an agreement saying, He unified America, and we're divided today, and Ben Franklin is the kind of person who can bring us together. And just such an unbelievable polymath. I mean, just so many different disparate areas of interest. Well, science, technology, healthy living. He lived to be 84. He was a practical businessman. Retired at age 62, and what did he do? Did he play golf all day? No, he was involved in civic affairs and scientific pursuits. So he started a second career. I really admire the man in many ways. And why is he the greatest?

I mean, because there's a lot of candidates for that moniker, right? There is. And in fact, when I don't show people the title of the book, so they don't know it's Ben Franklin. I say, who's the greatest American? You know, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Thomas Edison, Elon Musk. You know, they name a lot of different people. The subtitle is really important. It's the world's most versatile genius.

came up with 22 careers. So there's something for everybody in this book and these 80 chapters that I have. So I hope people will pick up a copy and then get it on Amazon and in the bookstores and put it on the coffee table, not in the bookshelf. No, there's so many things I've been learning. And just for the benefit of the viewers, these are very short chapters. Yes, there are 80 short chapters. It actually was a column I wrote for the Franklin Prosperity Report at Newsmax. accepted every uh every column i wrote except for one so what do you think the topic was that they rejected oh i i know immediately um his love life i'm sure right it was on sex but it's in the book i have it in chapter 77 of the book and i also cover the critics there were many critics of

franklin but he had a very interesting point of view he said he said enemies will teach you a lot about yourself so you should be grateful for the enemies you have because they tell you what you need to know that you haven't thought of. And he said, it's like George Whitfield, the great Methodist preacher, who said, you know, when I see kids pelting a tree from far off, I know there's fruit on that tree, apples. So he had a positive attitude regarding the enemies that he had in life. And Franklin actually had, I have a whole chapter on China and his relationship with the Chinese. He had a Chinese gong that was given to him as a gift, which apparently was banged when the emperor came in and so forth.

There was a lot of cool things about that. And Confucius, he had some articles about benefits of Confucius, philosophy and stuff. But, you know, he dealt with enemies. He dealt with England in the war, and he was actually in charge of the Treaty of Paris, which was really important dealing with the French. and with the English and with the Germans and the Spanish and so forth. So there's a lot to be learned. I have a whole chapter on diplomacy in the book that can be applicable.

It's also interesting that you mentioned Confucius. As we wrap up here, but I visited Montpellier not too long ago, James Madison's home, and I saw multiple portraits of Confucius actually up in the homes. There's kind of this interest in Confucius among the founding fathers. This has been an absolutely fascinating conversation for me. I'm excited to read more into these 80 chapters around Ben Franklin. I haven't read the China one. I'm going to be doing that momentarily.

A final quick thought as we finish? Well, I think we're entering an area where Americans can be great again. You know, Ben Franklin, at the end of his career, he said, A Republic, if you can keep it, and it looks like we are hopefully heading in that direction and we can bring more people together. He said his greatest symbol, and it's on the American Eagle silver dollar, I have one in my pocket, and it has the rising sun right on the cover.

It's got Lady Liberty, which Franklin would really like, but it also has the rising sun. It's not a setting sun, and that's a very important optimism that we need. And one thing I do like about President Trump, he's always saying, this economy is the greatest economy in the world. It may not be, but you like that kind of. of optimism. And that's where I think Ben Franklin we can learn from the greatest American. Oh, wonderful. And I, by the way, I cherish this, the dollar that you gave me at Freedom

Fest, the last time we were up on stage together. Anyhow, it's such a pleasure to have had you on Mark. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you all for joining Mark Skowson and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Janja Kellek.