The Trump Administration Is Weekend at Bernie’s-ing Alexander Hamilton and Hoping You Won’t Notice

They Are Literally Parading a Dead Man Around

I am going to say something that might sound harsh, but it needs to be said. The Trump administration’s defense of its tariff policy is built on a historical misreading so convenient it borders on propaganda. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamison Greer, and JD Vance, who apparently threw Reagan and Milton Friedman under the bus, keep invoking Alexander Hamilton as proof that their trade war is economically righteous.

I call this the Weekend at Bernie’s strategy. If you don’t know the reference, the 1989 movie involved two guys dragging a dead man around all weekend, pretending he was alive to avoid trouble. That is exactly what is happening here. Hamilton cannot defend himself. He cannot clarify. He cannot say “that is not what I meant.” So the administration props him up, points at him, and says, “see, he agrees with us.”

Phil Gramm called this out directly. Good for him.

The Actual Quote They Don’t Want You to Read

Yes, in Hamilton’s 1791 Report on the Subject of Manufactures, he argued that the young United States could use protective tariffs or subsidies to build domestic manufacturing. Here is the context they strip away:

• Hamilton was writing for a country that was basically a vast agricultural wilderness surrounded by hostile European manufacturing powers.
• His argument for protectionism was explicitly conditional. It applied when trading partners were actually shutting you out of their markets.
• He wrote that if “the system of perfect liberty to industry and commerce were the prevailing system of nations, the arguments which dissuade a country from the zealous pursuits of manufactures would doubtless have great force.”

Translation: Hamilton himself said the protectionist case weakens dramatically when free trade is genuinely on the table.

Here Is What the Data Actually Shows

The administration’s Bessent and Greer want you to believe we are in Hamilton’s world. We are not:

• The average trade-weighted tariff rate across OECD countries was below 3 percent before Trump’s tariffs. Nearly identical to the US rate.
• The OECD found non-tariff barriers from US trading partners were not materially higher than America’s own barriers.
• Real disposable income has not surged. Economic growth has not surged. The promises have not materialized in the numbers.

You are what your record says you are. I said that from the beginning. I wish the numbers were different. They are not.

Why This Matters to You Directly

When a major economic policy rests on a distorted historical argument, ordinary people pay the price:

• Higher consumer prices get absorbed by households, not foreign governments.
• Retaliation from trading partners hits American exporters, farmers, and manufacturers.
• Market volatility spooks retirement accounts and long-term savings.
• Policymakers double down because they have staked their credibility on a flawed premise.

The Watchdog Bottom Line

I have a rule. If someone has to misrepresent history to defend their policy, that policy probably cannot stand on its own merits. Hamilton was a genius. He was also a pragmatist who understood that tools like tariffs are responses to specific conditions, not permanent economic philosophies. The administration knows most people will never read the 1791 report. They are counting on it. I read it. Gramm read it. And now you know what it actually says.