Category: Donald Trump

Our First Amendment Freedom of Speech

President Trump seems to disregard our constitution generally but his attack on its guarantee of our freedom of speech is particularly dangerous. Its importance to our freedoms and democratic governance is so well-known and obvious that I will not bother to defend it. Trump has increasingly utilized his executive power and the administrative apparatus to target, penalize, or attempt to silence his critics, political opponents, and media organizations.

Through executive orders, directives, and appointees, the administration has ordered investigations into political adversaries and former officials who publicly criticized him. This includes directive-backed investigations targeting former government security officials like Chris Krebs (who contradicted election fraud claims) and first-term Trump official Miles Taylor.

Trump has repeatedly stripped high-ranking former officials and critics—such as former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey—of their security clearances, access to classified briefings, or government protection details after they issued public criticism. The Department of Justice is pursuing criminal prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey on trumped up (no pun intended, maybe) charges.

Executive actions have targeted non-profit think tanks, advocacy groups, and legal firms that represented positions adverse to the administration or published critical reports, including threats to target their tax-exempt statuses or initiate government reviews.

In an excellent and damning critique of Trump’s use of executive power to silence his critics Walter Olsen reported that “Donald Trump says he’s going to sue a private think tank over a report criticizing his policies. The report, from the left-leaning Center for American Progress, enraged him by arguing that his decision to deploy the National Guard in Washington, D.C. doesn’t really deserve credit for the city’s drop in violent crime rates since then because rates had been falling steeply before he acted.”  https://www.facebook.com/share/p/191KXwjiEJ/

Executive agencies have been leveraged to exert pressure on disfavored press. Measures have included revoking White House press credentials for journalists and news outlets covering the administration critically, threatening the regulatory status or FCC licenses of major broadcast networks, and directing federal agencies to limit media access.

Secretary of Defense Hegseth (after some thought and a glass of wine I have decided not to use any of the adjectives that I think apply to him) has largely shut down a free press in his department.  When he issued directives requiring journalists to obtain official approval before publishing military information—even unclassified details—and prohibiting unapproved gathering of information, most journalists walked out and took legal action. Dozens of major news outlets across the political spectrum—including The New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox News—refused to sign the pledge. Media organizations issued joint statements condemning the directive as an unconstitutional attempt at prior restraint and an assault on First Amendment press freedoms.

Media organizations challenged the policy in court (New York Times v. Department of Defense). In March 2026, a federal district judge ruled that the DOD rules amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and censorship, ordering the restoration of press credentials for journalists who refused to sign.

More recently “the longtime publisher of Stars and Stripes announced he’s stepping down weeks after the Pentagon installed an active-duty Navy captain at the military newspaper, an atypical appointment that staffers, board members and Democratic lawmakers say risks further eroding the publication’s independence from the government.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/08/20/democrats-sound-alarm-about-new-leader-uniform-stars-stripes/

Step by step the direction Trump is taking the country remains clear.

Foreign Students

The Trump administration finalized a major rule to tighten student visas by ending the “duration of status” policy and imposing a fixed four-year maximum admission cap. https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/07/16/trump-administration-issues-final-rule-end-foreign-student-visa-abuse   Why? Foreign students benefit the U.S. in a number of ways and we should seek to increase their number.

First: hosting foreign students is an export, it pays foreign money into the U.S. via tuition, room and board and other purchases these students make in the U.S.. The inflow of foreign exchange helps provide us with the means for paying for what we import from abroad. https://wcoats.blog/2025/11/04/trade/

Second: Foreign students gain firsthand experience of life in the U.S., often making lifelong friends. They take this knowledge home improving American relations with other countries. American student benefit from meeting and befriending the foreign students, thus broadening their knowledge of other cultures.

Third: When foreign students decide to remain in the U.S. we benefit from their knowledge and expertise increasing American income and wealth.

According to annual economic impact data calculated by NAFSA: Association of International Educators, foreign students spent and contributed $43.8 billion and supported approximately 378,000 jobs in the U.S. in the 2023–2024 Academic Year. This fell 2% during the next year, which was the first year of the current Trump administration.

We would do much better to deport Stephen Miller.

Tariffs again

“Mr. Trump said that generic-drug manufacturers must move production to America or their products will face a 100% tariff from August 2028. A 200% levy would follow from August 2029.” 

All economists and hopefully you as well understand that your standard of living (income) is higher (much higher) because you can specialize in what you are best at and trade for the rest (exploiting “comparative advantage”). If you had to be totally self-sufficient you would be dirt poor.

Unfortunately, Stephen Miller and Donald Trump don’t understand this or is it just that Trump gets such a kick out of throwing his weight around that he doesn’t care??

Immigrants

Aside from Native Americans (a story we should study more carefully), virtually all Americans at our founding were immigrants. Throughout our history immigrants have contributed enormously to our economic growth and wealth. Even today the United States is home to over 125 foreign-born billionaires, making up a massive segment of the nation’s top wealth brackets. Most of these leaders are self-made, primarily building their fortunes in the technology, finance, and aerospace sectors.

These immigrants did not become billionaires by taking income from the rest of us. They became billionaires by creating products and services that we benefited from. They became rich by raising our (the common man’s) incomes and standards of living.

Immigrants represent a disproportionately high percentage of business owners relative to their share of the total U.S. population even today. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Business Survey and economic research groups, there are over 6 million business owners in the United States who were born abroad.

Immigrants also occupy a massive share of top leadership positions. A landmark study by the National Foundation for American Policy found that nearly 80% of America’s privately held, billion-dollar companies (“unicorns”) have either an immigrant founder or an immigrant in a top executive role, such as CEO or Chief Technology Officer (CTO). While not all current CEOs are foreign-born, 46% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Over 1 in 5 business owners nationwide is an immigrant, and nearly 4 out of 5 highly valued modern tech companies rely on foreign-born leadership at the executive level.

Why is this important and why should we oppose the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce immigration? Immigrants do not choose to come to America to change it. They come generally to join what it offers, which is personally freedom to work hard and prosper. We must never forget that in free markets, transactions benefit both the seller and the buyer—win-win. Attracting innovating and hardworking people from around the world lifts their incomes but also ours. Why would we want to slow or stop that process?

Foreign students studying in American universities and colleges are a temporary form of immigration (as are agricultural guest workers) from which we benefit in several ways. One benefit is making friends. Foreign students learn first-hand what America is about and take that understanding home with them. They are also an important export (i.e., they earn dollars for the schools that teach them), thus reducing our balance of payments deficit. Surely, we should encourage more students to come, but over the last four academic years the number of Chinese students studying here has fallen every year.

There are other benefits. Immigrants also tend to bring bits of their culture with them. This is most obvious for cuisine, the variety of which is a wonderful contribution to the quality of our lives. Along with hamburgers, hot dogs and T-bone steaks, I have first-rate Chinese, Japanese, Italian, French, Lebanese, Mexican, Peruvian and mixed-cuisine restaurants within walking distance.

We need much more legal immigration (those vetted for the appropriateness of their character and skills) while preventing the illegal type. Those who are afraid of immigrants should move somewhere else themselves in my opinion.

The Rights of Sovereign Countries

The 193 sovereign countries in our world determine when and if people and goods of other countries may cross their borders into their territory. The safety and other standards required for their own products (cars, planes, medicine, breakfast food, etc.) are equally required for those imported. For example, US chicken is banned from EU and UK because of American post-slaughter Pathogen Reduction Treatments (PRTs), specifically the use of chlorine or other antimicrobial chemical washes to kill bacteria like Salmonella and Campylobacter, which are not approved of in these countries.

But the extensive cross-border trade and movement of workers and tourists have so enormously benefited the standard of living of almost every person on the globe that countries have generally cooperated to harmonize these standards. Two hundred years ago almost 80% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. That figure fell to almost 60% a hundred years ago and almost 10% today. ” Study finds wealthy nations reap huge benefits from immigration”.

This dramatic increase in wealth has been greatly facilitated by establishing international standards for many of these goods and services for which international standard bodies have been created such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF, for which I worked for 26 years) are among a broader group of international institutions promoting global cooperation.

Obviously, a country cannot allow the airplanes of other countries to enter and fly over or land in its territory without agreed standards for flight path reporting and control tower protocols. But what about satellites? They are part of the amazing story of telephone communications overseen by ITU in Geneva, Switzerland. On my cell phone I can connect to any other telephone in the world and have a conversation. It is unbelievable really.

On my first trip to Kabul in January 2002 we had to step outside to use our iridium satellite phones to connect with IMF headquarters in Washington DC (or anyone else for that matter). Landmines were later discovered in the garden we walked around while talking on our iridium phones.

Satellites can be stationary (i.e. move at the same pace the earth rotates so that it remains above the same territory below), or not and can be in a low or high orbit. Rules govern how a satellite should behave when passing over or near other satellites to prevent interference.

Satellites, unlike airplanes, are governed by a framework of international agreements and treaties, most notably the Outer Space Treaty.  Satellites move freely through orbital paths because a nation’s airspace only extends upwards to a certain (though legally undefined) altitude, while satellites operate in “outer space.” A satellite is governed by the laws and regulations of the specific country that launched or registered it. That launching country is completely responsible for authorizing, continuously supervising, and regulating the satellite’s operations. Nonetheless it is expected to abide by ITU regulations and assignment of the use of radio frequencies. ITU manages satellite frequency rights by acting as a global registry and coordination body to prevent signal interference, rather than by directly issuing operating licenses.

The United States is officially withdrawing from 66 international organizations. This includes 31 United Nations entities (such as the UNFCCC, UN Women, and the UN Population Fund) and 35 non-UN organizations (including the IUCN, the Green Climate Fund, and the World Health Organization). In my view, this dismantling of the global system of cooperation is a serious mistake—damaging both the US and the global system. The US has not, however, withdrawn from the ITU. But will the US play by the rules? The unpredictability of the Trump administration has the world wondering and worrying how far American destruction of the global order will go.

Scoring the Iran War

What did we gain from the Iran war and what was the cost (so far)? Why did we launch this war? What was our objective and have we achieved it?

From a NYTimes article and JD Vance speech the US budgetary cost of our illegal attack on Iran was about $150 billion. This year’s conflict cost five to six thousand lives. This does not include the economic cost to the world from oil shortages and food shortages expected from the shortage of fertilizer, etc. NYTimes – Iran war costs

In evaluating what we gained from the war it is hard to know whether to treat the negative outcome as a negative gain or an additional cost. Prior to this war the Straits of Hormuz were open and passage was free. While Iran seems to have agreed to reopen them, they have now clearly demonstrated the potential to close them or charge for passage as potential future choke points. While Iran may be giving up its financing of friends in the neighborhood (Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Yemen), and this would be an import gain, it has established its military strength to defend itself while the US has demonstrated its vulnerability.

More importantly, Iran is now judged by many to be more likely to build an atomic bomb. The Iran Deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action -JCPOA) negotiated by the Obama administration, which insured that Iran would not do so for at least ten years, was overturned during the first Trump administration. Hopefully such assurances can be reestablished during the 60 day negotiations still ahead. Though such a bomb would violate Islamic doctrine, the need for such protection has been greatly increased by US/Israel aggressions. But the MOU agreed to this week provides no assurance that a new agreement would be any better than the one Trump killed in May 2018. The Washington Post’s careful analysis suggests that it is not promising that a new agreement will be any better than the old one:  Trump condemned Obama’s Iran deal-here’s how his own compares

In an interview at the opening of his Presidential Library in Chicago, former President Obama stated that: “it feels like we are back where we were before we started the war, except maybe a little worse off…”  The Hill-Obama on Trump Iran war Obama’s assessment was not including the costs of the war noted above.

US support of Israel has been very costly. Virtually the whole amaworld, other than the US, has condemned Israel’s behavior in recent years. The number of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza alone since the Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas that killed 1,200, is hard to estimate in part because so many remain buried under the rubble. As reported in an interesting effort to estimate deaths, over half of those killed were women and children, Ralph Nadar stated that: “The recent report by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, referred to a consensus of 680,000 deaths.  Fatalities by Israel-vast Gaza genocide-deliberately undercounted These deaths don’t include those in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, which continue to this day despite a so-called cease fire.

More broadly the damage to America’s reputation because of our support of Israel’s bloody attacks of its Palestinian, Lebanon, and Syrian neighbors has been further increased by its illegal attacks on Iran. Our rapid decline continues.

According to Ian Bremmer: “The cease-fire does not mark the end of this chapter of conflict and regional division in the Middle East; it is instead driving a geopolitical realignment along new fault lines.

“More outcomes? A more polarized and fractured Middle East. Iran in a stronger strategic position. And American partners shaken by erratic and unpredictable conduct.

“The war has accelerated the collapse of the US-anchored order that held the Middle East together for decades. That arrangement kept oil flowing, rival powers out of the region, and Washington the broker of everything that mattered – from Iranian containment to the more recent Arab-Israeli normalization process. It was already fraying before the fighting started. The war broke it.”   Linkedin – What actually mattered

Obeying the rules is in our interest

The U.S. Department of Justice indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro for his alleged role in the 1996 Cuban military downing of two civilian planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue, which killed four people (including three U.S. citizens).Since September 2, 2025, the U.S. military has attacked suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific 59 times, killing 196 people. Shouldn’t we be indicting Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, for murder?

“According to President Donald Trump’s mysterious math, that means this campaign of carnage has prevented around 1.5 million drug-related deaths in the United States—more than 20 times the total number recorded in the year before Trump started treating suspected cocaine smugglers as ‘combatants’ who can be killed at will, from a distance and in cold blood.

“Back on planet Earth, there is no reason to think the boat strikes have prevented any deaths at all. That could only happen if blowing up smugglers—as opposed to the previous practice of intercepting them, arresting them, and seizing their cargo, which Trump says was ‘totally ineffective’—reduced the supply of cocaine available to American consumers. Given more than a century of failed attempts to ‘stop the flow’ of illegal intoxicants, that never seemed likely. And nearly nine months after Trump launched his new, deadlier version of the war on drugs, there is no evidence that it is more effective than the traditional tactics he derides as insufficiently homicidal.” Jacob Sullum, “Blowing up boats hasn’t slowed cocaine traffic to U.S.”

Should we care about such a double standard? Yes. What we are doing is not only illegal but also immoral. Hopefully we aspire to behave morally because we aspire to be moral people. But there is a practical self-interest in playing by the rules as well.

We could often get our way simply because we are the strongest guy on the block. President Trump seems to like being a bully. However, pushing others around has a cost. The better we can live up to the high principles upon which our nation was founded, the more respect we will receive from others (nations and people). One of those important principles is adhering to the rule of law. Such respect means that others will cooperate with us more easily (at lower cost to us).

International norms and conventions generally serve the interests of all who have agreed to them. Win, win. When we violate them, the world pays a cost and so do we.

Gas Taxes??

The US/Israel attack on Iran and resulting closing of the Straights of Hormuz has reduced the world’s oil supply. As a result, gasoline prices are increasing. Is that good or bad? Should the federal and state government suspend gasoline taxes until normal supply is restored?

When the supply of something is artificially reduced, its price increases to equate the new supply and demand. For gasoline, the impact of the supply shock can be moderated by releasing oil from the reserve the US and most countries maintain for such shocks. Thus the fall in gasoline supply would be kept smaller than it would other wise be. But how long will the supply shock last and how large is the reserve.?

The natural price increase in the face of a supply shock has several helpful effects. Those who need it most can still get it. Some non essential travel is reduced. President Nixon’s wage and price freeze in the early 1970s when confronted with the 1973 Arab oil embargo produced long lines of cars at gas stations that still had some gasoline. Price rationing is better than waiting in long lines

President Trump has proposed temporarily suspending government taxes on gasoline. This is a very bad idea not only because of the Nixon shock effect of non-price rationing but because it will reduce government revenue when its debt and deficits are already dangerously large. In the May 11 Washington Post Mitch Daniels provides an excellent account of that danger. “US national debt disaster looms-ai cant-stop it”   If you click on his link to a Cato Institute article on MMT you will be able to enjoy my article on that subject. “Modern Monetary Theory-critique”

Homeland – Final

We have now completed all eight seasons of Homeland. After my review of the first two seasons my old U of Chicago friend and fellow libertarian, Joe Cobb, said that we would like the rest of it as well. He was correct. The story continued to confront the main characters with excruciating choices with more plot twists than I could keep track of. Would you take steps to save the life of a friend that could result in the deaths of several thousand—or the reverse.

But what I want to share with you here is how eerily like today the early 2000s were. We were fighting with Iran, then Iraq. Forever wars our current President promised to end (remember that?). Not only did the struggles being portrayed seem like today but reviewing my email and news flashes during our breaks between episodes seemed like a continuation of the TV series. It was really weird. Homeland moves into my list of all-time favorite series, which includes The Wire, The Jewel in the Crown, and Breaking Bad.

National Science Foundation

On Friday, April 24, President Trump fired all 24 members of the National Science Foundation Board without saying why their staggered six year terms were not honored. Unlike executive branch departments, such as Treasury, Defense (now called Dept of War), Education, etc., which rightly should reflect the policy preferences of the President, the NSF, like the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, was carefully designed to be nonpartisan for good reason. A Forbes article by John Drake nicely explains the purpose of such design.

“Most people outside the research enterprise have never heard of the NSB, so it’s worth saying what it is. The National Science Foundation Act of 1950 created NSF with two heads: a director and a board. Jointly they set the strategic direction of an agency that now distributes roughly $9 billion annually in federal research funding, approve its budget submissions, and authorize new major programs. The board’s members are nominated for their distinguished records in science, engineering, education, and public affairs, drawn from industry and universities, and confirmed to staggered six-year terms so that scientific research priorities are set by the long arc of scientific progress rather than the election cycle. The statute requires that members be chosen “solely on the basis of established records of distinguished service.”

“That last phrase is the one I keep returning to.

“American scientist, inventor and administrator Vannevar Bush (1890 – 1974), whose ‘differential analyser’ was a forerunner of the computer, served as director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development throughout World War II and authored an influential report that led to the founding of the National Science Foundation. More American scientific preeminence is often discussed as if it were a product of talent or funding. It is really a product of institutions, the unglamorous architecture of boards, charters, terms of service, peer review and statutory independence that the postwar generation built deliberately. The structure traces to Vannevar Bush’s 1945 report Science, the Endless Frontier, which argued that federal science required governance insulated from political pressure and stability of support beyond any single budget cycle. The five-year fight to translate Bush’s vision into law turned largely on questions of independence and accountability, and the staggered six-year terms were part of the resulting compromise. Six-year terms exist for a reason. Staggered appointments exist for a reason. “Solely on the basis of distinguished service” is in the founding statute for a reason.

“The board’s function has been contested before, but always on the existing terms. As recently as 2022, scholars were debating how to modernize the board’s role, proposing to reduce its management duties and make NSF look more like other federal agencies. But other federal agencies are precisely the ones most exposed to political control. Their leaders serve at the pleasure of the president. Their priorities shift with each administration. The whole reason NSF’s structure is unusual is that the postwar designers did not want science funding to work that way. Even the would-be reformers recognized this: they proposed keeping the board’s staggered terms and statutory independence intact.

“These structures depend on a shared understanding, across administrations and across parties, that some institutions are worth preserving even when they constrain you. When that understanding lapses, the structures themselves do not survive long.

“On May 5, the National Science Board is scheduled to meet. There is no agenda, and at the moment, no board. That absence is the thing worth attending to, beyond the news of any particular firing. The question is not who sits on the board. The question is whether the kind of board the 1950 Act envisioned still exists in practice, and what American science looks like if it does not.” 2026/04/25/ “Trump fired the entire national science board-here’s why that matters”

At a minimum, when the President takes such action, the public should be given an explanation for why he thought it was justified. Ideally such a dramatic step should be preceded by a public discussion of the pros and cons of doing so.  This is not Trump’s style.

It my opinion Elon Musk’s DOGE downsizing of government (9% reduction in Federal employees before some had to be rehired and reducing the federal budget by claimed savings between roughly 160–215 billion dollars, counting job cuts, contract and lease cancellations, asset sales, and grant reductions) did more harm than good. Musk initially talked about cutting “at least 2 trillion dollars” from the federal budget, later revising goals down to around 1 trillion and then still lower, but actual savings fell far short of any of those targets.

A CBS‑covered analysis by a nonpartisan research group estimated that while DOGE claimed about 160 billion dollars in gross savings, its actions would also impose roughly 135 billion dollars in additional costs in the same fiscal year (for example through deferred‑resignation pay, disruption, and lost enforcement/revenue), implying a net savings nearer 25 billion dollars in that window.

But the real tragedy is that the opportunity to carefully evaluate and publicly debate whether government agencies were performing beneficial functions and doing so as efficiently as possible was totally missed. I offer the example of USAID, with whom I have worked both as a contractor and across the table as a collaborator. In my experience they have done an outstanding job serving America’s foreign policy interests:  https://wcoats.blog/2025/02/17/usaid/

The Trump administration has not operated in the traditional manor of our best (or even mediocre) Presidents. Even Kings are usually more careful in justifying and explaining their dictates.