In 2024, the US economy lost over $1 trillion doing business with the rest of the world.  Over the years and decades, the American economy has lost many trillions of dollars through international commerce.     I believe that those cumulative losses may have helped cause the financial crash and Great Recession of 2008, and may have contributed substantially to America’s current $37 trillion federal debt by weakening the American economy.  As the Federal Reserve Note continues to lose value, I believe that the Federal Reserve Board’s ability to keep our economy afloat with loans of paper money to our financial institutions will inevitably diminish.

It is urgent that at long last our federal government adopt more sensible policies, but several decades of devastating trade losses have not resulted in any positive changes in our balance of trade.  Despite the “giant sucking sound” of departing jobs, money, and manufacturing capacity that Ross Perot accurately predicted would follow the adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, Congress is still allowing very large balance of trade deficits to continue.  Republicans and Democrats alike have been culpable over the long years for America’s self-destructive trade policies.  

The American people cannot afford to allow their elected representatives to be so badly misguided on the subject of trade.  Our country may have suffered more from Congress’ trade policies than it has from their equally misguided immigration policies.  I hope that grassroots Republicans will start to care as much about the issue of trade as they have come to care about illegal immigration.

If I am elected to the US Senate from Arizona in 2028, I will support the continued use of tariffs to get the American balance of trade deficit under control.  Following the example of President Donald Trump, I will also do all I can to promote American industrial development.

Paid for by John J Lyon for US Senate.