I Hate Failing Students. This One Earned It.

Two Aussies Walk Into a British Show About America

Last week, I joined Maddie Hale on The Trump Report. It was an Aussie interviewing a fellow Aussie on a British show about the American economy. Maybe that’s a statement about the state of globalization. Or Australians. Or America, I suppose.

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We covered a lot of ground: 1.5% growth in GDP is far from the boom the president promised, but definitely healthier than doomers predicted. The “K-shaped economy” is very much still alive, despite the Treasury Secretary’s best efforts to declare it dead. And inflation may be slowing, but that’s not the same thing as prices going down — and the president’s claims otherwise were either dishonest or just plain ignorant.

We also spent a good while on Canada, our unfailingly polite neighbors who we’ve been horrifically rude to. In response, they’ve been quietly rewiring their economy around us — fewer American products in their shopping carts, fewer students in our universities, and fewer tourists crossing the bridge to Michigan. This kind of damage won’t show up in a quarterly GDP report, but it will play out over decades.

Maddie concluded our conversation by asking me to grade the administration’s economic policy. I hate failing students, truly. But if you want to know why this one earned an F — why it’s not even close, and not remotely ideological — give the episode a listen.