Thursday, April 10, 2025

Part I

---

President Trump Puts Major Tariffs on Hold for 90 Days – Except for China

Well, they’re on. Now, they’re off. At least they’re paused. I’m talking about tariffs when it comes to most countries. Yesterday, President Trump announced in a tweet, the White House followed up with a formal statement saying that the tariffs that have been set by the White House variously for countries all over the globe, that they were on hold, a 90-day hold with the exception of a 10% continuance in terms of a constant tariff with the exception of China, and at least at one point yesterday, the tariff rate against China was well over 100%. The President and the White House are reconstruing the entire issue related to tariffs as being, at least for now, primarily about corrections when it comes to China. It is right now primarily about marshalling energy against the unfair trading practices of China, the incredible trade imbalance of China.

Now, by the way, why is China in this position? Is it just because of low wages? Well, it’s because of more than that, and this has been an issue of deep concern for Americans, administration after administration, president after president. It has been an urgent concern of President Donald Trump, and that is this trade imbalance has been orchestrated by the Communist Party there in China in such a way that it has been injurious to the entire world economy, a great distortion field given the fact that China has basically been flooding the world with very cheap goods. How does that happen? Well, here’s where the moral concern comes in, and it’s a political concern on the part of nations. It has been an issue of resentment for the United States, but also European nations. 

I’m talking about the fact that for the course of the last several decades, China has claimed to be two things at once, and China has claimed to be a vast global economy, a vast global economic superpower. And undoubtedly it is. When it comes to China and the United States, without question, they are the two biggest economic forces in terms of national identity in the world. But China has also claimed something else, and this is something many Americans do not understand. China has claimed to qualify for the exemptions given to the developing world because China has claimed for decades that it is simultaneously a vast economic superpower and a developing nation that deserves all the special opportunities given to developing economies, which means an exemption from so many rules by which the major economies have to function. In one sense, the United States is simply saying, “No more of this.” And now President Trump, the Secretary of the Treasury, others within the administration are saying in one sense this is a change in the tariff strategy, and then it’s not. President Trump has been insisting there’s not a basic change in the strategy and in terms of his internal thinking, that might be true. But at least in terms of the messaging from the administration, there have been two or three, maybe even more iterations of the argument.

President Trump likes tariffs. He hates a trade imbalance. He also needs economic stability here in the United States. And so in one sense, President Trump is an outlier in American politics because he is willing to experiment in ways traditional presidents have been unwilling to experiment. The example I’ve been giving in recent days, and you’ve heard this before, is that the tariff policy, as the president has announced it, is the equivalent of throwing marbles onto a table. You’re just not sure where they’re going to go. There are too many interactions. You’re going to put a lot of energy on that table, but you just don’t know where the marbles are going to go. Well, in one sense, the marbles went towards disequilibrium and mass loss of equity, of value in the stock markets. And so you had stocks plunge, you had Wall Street panic, and so it’s arguable that President Trump made an adjustment simply because of the weakening of the American situation.

The economic picture was so many people saying, “Look, the US is going into a recession now and it’s going to take the rest of the world into a recession.” Anxiety across the board. Now, at one and the same time, President Trump seems to be saying, “I have a strategy behind this disequilibrium, and don’t worry, I’m not going to let it get out of control.” He has also said that “The purpose of the tariffs is to level the international trade playing field.” He said, “On the other hand, they exist to bring in new income to the American Treasury so that that income doesn’t have to come through taxation on the American people.” Now, is he saying two contradictory things? Time will tell, probably not in his own mind, but it is also clear that he’s keeping his options open as to how he sees the tariffs operating.

Now, go back to my marbles on the table. Many people, particularly on the left are saying, “Look, President Trump is entirely changing his story.” Well, that would make sense if President Trump had a really clear idea of exactly how he thought the tariff announcement was going to play out, and the disequilibrium that has come, the instability that has come has forced him to change his policy. I think no doubt he’s changed his policy. I think it’s arguable that it was a developing policy intended to develop over time from the beginning, and that’s because, as I say, the situation’s so complex. No one can adequately predict what the response to the tariff announcements would be. So about 70 countries, President Trump said, have now approached him about negotiations to end the tariff threat and to create a new trade arrangement with the United States, and we’ll see how successful those are.

Now, the president has said that he wants a bespoke or custom tailored negotiation and arrangement with every one of these trading countries, every one of these countries. How does that turn out? Well, who knows? That’s going to take time. Even the most optimistic within the administration say this is going to take just about every bit of the 90 days pause the president put in place. Because if you have 70 different countries, and by the way, that includes big countries and small countries, it includes some of our closest allies, especially say European countries. There’s a lot on the table. And President Trump is telling us that what he now wants is two things. He wants the trade and tariff policies to remove a disadvantage to the United States of America, basic unfairness to the United States of America. But he’s also singled out one bad actor. The White House is clear about this and that is China.

And so he’s calling for other nations now facing less of a tariff threat from the United States, at least for now, to join with the United States and to join with him in bringing common action against China. Will it work or not? Well, as in everything economic, time will tell, but there is something to be said for a joint effort in terms of trying to rein in China’s excesses and frankly unfairness in this situation. But as I’ve said, one of the other things is you have to watch the American people. You can watch the stock markets right away because the numbers are publicly available practically minute by minute when the markets are open.

When it comes to the American people, it’s a little more of a delayed reaction. But you know what? The American people are very accustomed to buying very cheap things from countries like China and Vietnam, and even though they definitely want to have a more fair trading system, that’s an abstraction when it comes to what they do every week when they go to the grocery store, that’s an abstraction from when they’re ordering some kind of equipment or some kind of furniture. So much of that is now made ready to be assembled from some kind of foreign source. The reality is that Americans understand rather intuitively that tariffs are a threat to prices, basically amounting to a new form of taxation. Will this be to the nation’s advantage? Time will tell.

But it is really interesting at this point, when we were at this week, at this point in history, at this stage in the Trump administration, it is very interesting to see that the President is at least in part responsive to the markets, responsive to public pressure, responsive no doubt, not only to economics, but to political pressure from you could say this, governors and from especially Republican leaders in both the House and the Senate. The truth is that this is an unfolding reality. At this snapshot in time, a lot of pressure has been let out of the equation.

The stock markets are showing it, and the political support is likely to show it as well. And the President says that he and the country will come out of this a winner. It’s a moving equation, but the president at this point is renegotiating the terms of this particular challenge. By the way, one thing about the tariffs, it leads to some very interesting economic conclusions. So I know we just said it’s been put on hold. Most nations, the tariff situation’s been put on hold except for a 10% tariff. So a nation like Switzerland is not facing the 31% tariff that was threatened by the White House just in recent days, but it does lead to some very interesting math. So for example, someone did the math and said that if you want to buy a new Rolex, a new Rolex Land‑Dweller, that’s a very famous, very elite new Rolex watch.

It costs a lot of money. $52,300. That’s quite an expensive watch. If you can afford a Rolex Land‑Dweller, if you were to buy it in the United States with a tariff of 31%, that means you’d be paying $68,500 for the watch. So the price with the tariff means no longer $52,300, but $68,500. I guess there’s some people who would look at that watch purchase and say, “Well, that’s steep. That’s a little high.” But here’s where the argument is made. That’s a markup of $16,000. And as Sayan Chakravarty reported in a business report, “The potential markup of over $16,000 is enough to make even the most brand loyal Rolex enthusiasts take pause. But more than that, it opens the door to a fascinating and very real possibility it could soon be cheaper to fly to Geneva first class, stay in a luxury suite, dine at a Michelin starred restaurant, and buy the Land‑Dweller there locally in Switzerland all for less than what it would cost to buy the same watch stateside.”

So once again, if this tariff were in place, then you could fly first class to Switzerland, get a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel for about $3,000 a night, as we are told, and a dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant. And well, the bottom line is that’d be about $15,000, we’re told. That’s $1,000 less than buying it here with the tariff. So I guess if you are intending to buy a Rolex Land‑Dweller watch, you ought to keep that in mind.

Part II

---

Florida School District Upholds Parental Authority: Only Parents Can Decide to Change a Child’s Name at School

Okay, next, we often talk about red and blue America, more conservative America, more liberal America, sometimes simplified by saying red states and blue states. Now, there are conservatives in blue states and there are liberals in red states, but they’re vastly outnumbered, and in some states, respectively, they’re without control. They have almost no influence. Republicans in California just don’t have much say in anything. Arguably, Democrats in Alabama don’t have much say either, but they are still nonetheless representative of a great divide in the United States, and it’s a divide over some of the most basic issues.

This is what is the real threat, I think from a Christian perspective. According to the Christian worldview, as I come back again and again, the closer you get to a violation of creation order, the greater the challenge, the deeper the significance of the issue. So these creation order issues can arise in some unusual formats, and certainly I think it’s safe to say we’re kind of accustomed to being surprised. I realize that’s something of an irony, but we’re accustomed to being surprised by new issues that arise. So for example, policy of the schools. Should the schools call children who identify as transgender by what they declared to be their preferred name or not? Or do schools have the responsibility to turn to parents in this kind of situation, or do they not have the responsibility to turn to parents?

Understand how deep this is. So in the state of California famously or infamously now, you have state law in effect supported by of course Governor Gavin Newsom, stating that school teachers in California are not required to tell parents when their child, either, in this case, a child or a teenager, when that child identifies as transgender at school, the schools don’t have to report that, particularly teachers don’t have to report that to parents. On the other hand, in Florida, as USA Today reported, just in recent days, “A Florida school district has opted not to renew a high school teacher’s contract after she referred to a student by a name other than their legal name without parental permission.” That’s at Satellite High School and they’re in the Brevard Public Schools in Florida.

And so just notice you’ve got two different coasts. You’ve got two different worldviews here, two different reckonings of something as basic as who’s a boy and who’s a girl. Two different sets of rules for the schools that are a lot more than about the schools. And look at the parental rights angle on this. In California, the scandal is that the state says that teachers don’t have to tell parents anything about this situation. In Florida, the law of the state says that when it comes to using the name of a child at school, only parents can authorize a change in the name. And so you have two different coasts, you have two different understandings of gender here, but of course, we as Christians understand you can’t just misconstrue that. That points to a far more basic disagreement, a far more basic conflict in terms of worldview.

So that’s at least one angle on this. You have schools in California and schools in Florida. They don’t just have different rules. They have almost absolutely opposite rules on something as basic as who’s a girl and who’s a boy and what is a child’s name. So predictably in this case, there’s public support for the teacher who knowingly violated the law there in Florida, knowingly violated the requirement that only parents could change a name seeking, as the teacher said, to identify with the student, this teacher allowed the student to go by the alternative to the student’s legal name. A friend and colleague of the teacher whose contract is not going to be renewed said “She,” I’m not going to use her name, “is a teacher loved by all her students. Her goal was to make everyone feel welcome and to enhance their learning experience.” Well, that’s how the argument goes, to make everyone feel welcome and just notice what’s required in that, what’s implicit in that. It is that you’re not showing welcome unless you’re willing to use a name that doesn’t correspond with biological sex.

You could put it another way, and that is that if you do use that name, you join in the complicity to deny the meaning of biological sex. And of course, there’s a disagreement here about which is good for the child. The state of California says that transgender identity could be so good for the child that parents shouldn’t even be told about it. The public school should be the agent of affirming the child, even over against the parent’s ignorance. So parental rights, I would argue, disappear in that situation effectively. If parents aren’t told about this, then just ask the question, what do they have to be told about? This is a direct assault on parental authority and parental rights, but in the state of Florida, it is the opposite. So in the state of Florida, the teacher loses her job if she violates this principle, and predictably, you have people come up and say, “That’s not fair. She’s a good teacher.”

Well, on both sides of the country, one of the other realities is that if you have laws, they are laws. And if you have laws, then it doesn’t matter how nice someone is violating the laws. Now, I think the laws in California are absolutely wrong. I think the law in Florida here is absolutely right, but I do think it’s very interesting to note that both Florida and California appear quite determined to enforce their laws.

Part III

---

‘The Majority of Citizens Agree with Me, Not You’: Interaction Between Trump and Maine’s Governor Goes Viral

But all right, let’s leave California and Florida to argue over this across the rest of the country. Let’s go north to Maine. USA Today. Again, I just remind you, USA Today seems to love this kind of story. USA Today ran another story, the headline, “Maine Sues USDA.” Now, just remember for a moment, that’s the US Department of Agriculture for freezing funds to feed kids over Title IX debate. Well, that doesn’t look like a headline that has anything to do with a related issue. Oh, of course it does. The subhead in the article, “Amid trans athlete spat, Maine sues USDA over freezing funds used to feed kids.”

Kinsey Crowley reports, “The state of Maine filed a lawsuit Monday against the US Department of Agriculture seeking injunctive relief after the department froze federal funds the state says it uses for food insecurity programs, and the state of Maine is saying this is all over the Title IX debate between the state of Maine and Governor Janet Mills and the Trump administration and President Trump himself. All this comes down to the fact that Maine’s state law,” according to USA Today, “prohibits schools from denying students equal opportunity to sports based on gender identity.”

Now, we talked a bit about this because even as President Trump made a very clear statement in his inaugural address for the second term that the Trump administration, and thus the US government will recognize two and only two genders, male and female, and even as the president has, and I say this with appreciation, been pushing this through the federal government, remember, these are USDA funds. The state of Maine has been one of the states that has cried out saying, “We’re not going to go along. We believe in biological males playing on female teams when it comes to girls and women’s sports.” They’re not going to put it that way, but they’re saying that they are not going to prevent trans women or trans girls, that’s their designation, from participation in female sports.

As a matter of fact, USA Today reports that Maine has adopted a law that would effectively prohibit the schools from preventing, say, boys from playing on girls team, biological males from playing on girls teams. The state of Maine is now filing suit against the federal government, against the Trump administration because of this policy. The subhead in a later part of the article, by the way, is “Exchange with Trump and Maine Governor goes viral.”

Now, that refers to something that happened in social media back in February, President Trump said, “Is Maine here, the governor of Maine?” He went and asked, “Are you not going to comply with it?” That meant the order to the NCAA, the directive and the Governor of Maine responded, “I’m complying with state and federal law.” The president responded with a very interesting tweet. “Well, we are the federal law. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t, and by the way, your population, even though it’s somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports.” Quintessential Trump. In other words, you’re not talking about federal law. He says, “We are the federal law and you better do it because this is going to threaten your federal funding.” And then he underlined that.

This is what’s morally significant by saying, “Even in liberal Maine, the majority of your own citizens agree with me, not with you.” Now, we know this from polling that between 70 and 80% perhaps plus of Americans, even though many of them say they’re all for the LGBTQ revolution, when it comes down to the specific question, should say a teenage boy play on teenage girls teams, should a biological male should a man play on women’s teams, overwhelmingly, Americans say, “That doesn’t make any sense.” By the way, Christians, we need to respond by saying, “You bet that doesn’t make any sense.” But you need to figure out what’s consistent with that judgment, what other policies would have to be aligned with that judgment. Yes, it doesn’t make sense, but remember why it doesn’t make sense. And if it doesn’t make sense there, it doesn’t make sense over here either.

Part IV

---

The Transgender Revolution is Trickling Down Further into the Sports World: Controversy Erupts Over Trans Fencer and Disc Golfer

Well, okay, so remember that so many of the people who are either LGBTQ activists or let’s just say the fellow travelers with the LGBTQ activists, they keep saying, “This is a very small problem. You’re talking about a very tiny number of people.” But let me just point out, the headlines are exploding all over the place, and it’s not just here. It’s there. It’s everywhere. For example, coming from The Telegraph in London, headline, “Women’s disc golfer refuses to play against transgender opponent.” Now, I know, I know most of you already know what disc golf is, but I got to admit to you, I really didn’t. It’s hard for me still to imagine. Don’t be offended here that it’s mostly about throwing frisbees evidently with some accuracy. But let’s just leave that for a moment and let’s just point out that here you have another transgender controversy when it comes to disc golf. A woman’s disc golfer has refused to play against transgender opponent made The Telegraph, major newspaper in London.

Here’s another headline, this one coming from Reuters, the French News Agency, “USA fencing disqualifies female fencer for refusing to fight trans opponent.” Okay, now we’re talking fencing. Now, I do know at least that involves swords and swords are sharp, and the issue of arm length would have to be a relevant criterion here, and I’ll just say that I think even someone from the medieval era in which swords were a little more prominent, they could probably figure this one out immediately, but it just shows you that everything gets transformed when you have a movement at odds with creation order, the more basic you have the rebellion against creation order, the more comprehensive the revolution appears, and now it’s about disc golf fencing. It’s about swimming. It’s about track and field. It’s about just about everything on land, in the water, in the air.

Once you rebel against creation order, the ramifications are everywhere.

Part V

---

We Have Surpassed the Decadence of Rome: Federal Judge Permits Drag Show, ‘Draggieland,’ to Go On at Texas A&M

One other issue on this before we leave it today, and this gets to the same kind of issue, but more than. The Washington Post, just over the course of the last several days, ran a headline story, “Federal Judge blocks Texas A&M ban on drag shows.” Now, let me just remind you, Texas A&M is a major research university. It’s a major university in Texas, arguably a good deal more conservative than another big university there, that would be the University of Texas at Austin. But in any event, Texas A&M University adopted a ban on on-campus drag shows. Let me just remind you what a drag show is. This is a flamboyant, sexually suggestive display of transgressive sexual behavior, mostly with men dressing as women, and let’s just say in an exaggerated way. There’s no point to do it unless it’s an exaggerated way and then making it a form of entertainment.

By the way, some of this, some of this, not so much a drag show, but some of these characters such as decades ago were found in comedy. The whole joke was, this is implausible. No one’s arguing that this is a lifestyle. No one’s saying that this is a genuine shift in gender identity, and yet it’s no laughing matter now, not any context. Now, you have a major university ordered by a federal judge not to block a drag show on campus. The Post tells us Sophia Ahmed delivered the news on Monday with a two-word message in all capital letters, “WE WON.” A court had ruled that the annual on-campus drag show she and classmates at Texas A&M University had organized could still happen, and this is a matter of, as I said, just a few days ago. 

All right, this, by the way, is an event which is called Draggyland, as in Aggieland. Yeah, you got it. And the individual cited here at the beginning of the article then summarized it, speaking of Draggyland with these words, “It boils down to being an example of queer joy on campus.” There’s just no doubt what it is. There’s no doubt why the LGBTQ activist community is very happy with this federal judge’s action, and just as a reminder, a way of underlining, it’s a way of just highlighting what in the world’s going on in our culture. You have divisions on the two coasts between school systems with completely different even contradictory policies when it comes to supposedly transgender identity with children and teenagers and then the rights of parents. It’s as if they’re in two different moral worlds. And then you look at this and you see there can be two different moral worlds just even on one campus. In this case, Texas A&M University over the issue of a drag show, which by the way, let me just say, would’ve been incomprehensible fairly recently in history.

Can you imagine what would’ve happened as a headline just a few years ago if there had been an event like Draggyland on the campus of a major state university like Texas A&M? It is a demonstration, again, of how fast moral change happens, but also how coercive it is, and in this case, the organizers of Draggyland went to federal court to force the administration of Texas A&M University no longer to block it. I’m just going to conclude by saying that as much literature as I have read on the fall of Rome and the decadence of Rome, this is oddly frighteningly parallel to the kind of event which was a demonstration of Rome’s decadence as the explanation for the fall of the Roman Empire itself. You can look at something like this and say, “Hey, it is just one campus. It’s just one event. It is just one Draggyland. It’s just one example of queer joy on campus.”But nothing like this is just that. I think both sides know it’s about a whole lot more, and that’s why so much is at stake.