In a nicely nuanced editorial, “JD Vance is Wrong: The Market Isn’t a ‘Tool’” Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2025, Matthew Hennessey, deputy editorial features editor of the Journal, took issue with Vice-President Vance, writing:
On a recent podcast, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat asked Mr. Vance for an example of how his Catholicism influences his politics. His first instinct wasn’t to cite the social issues typically associated with conservative Catholic political concerns—abortion, immigration, sexual ethics—but to launch a missile at the market. “Well, I think one of the criticisms that I get from the right is that I am insufficiently committed to the capital-M market,” he answered. “The market is a tool, but it is not the purpose of American politics.”
Later in his editorial Hennessey wrote:
Markets, whether for cheap consumer goods or government bonds, can’t be bullied into compliance with a political agenda. They aren’t governed by the philosophies and desires of men like Mr. Vance. They are governed by the laws of economics the way the physical world is governed by the laws of gravity. You can moan about them all you want, you can lament the trade-offs they demand and the constraints they impose, but you can’t ignore or wish them away. No amount of political will or spilled ink can overrule them. Supply and demand are undefeated.
Note: Because of my contract with the Wall Street Journal, I am not allowed to quote more than 2 paragraphs from a Journal article until 30 days after it appears. But you can find a longer segment from Hennessey’s editorial here.
Vice-President Vance wrote a response, and I responded to him. Here are 2 paragraphs of my 3-paragraph response:
Mr. Vance writes that President Trump has also “leveraged access to America’s markets” to get “fairer treatment from foreign partners” on trade, illegal immigration and illegal drugs. But that isn’t using markets as a tool, either; it’s coercively regulating markets to get the president’s desired results. Parenthetically, do Messrs. Trump and Vance really believe Canada’s government can substantially reduce the amount of fentanyl passing through its border with the U.S., which at 43 pounds in fiscal 2024 was 0.2% of the volume seized along the U.S.-Mexico border?
Mr. Vance asks, “Should we allow enormous volumes of Mexican produce or Chinese autos to decimate productive American industries—or should we use tools like tariffs and trade remedies to protect them?” Allowing Chinese electric vehicles into the U.S. wouldn’t decimate domestic production, especially if Mr. Trump succeeds in ending EV mandates so that U.S. firms can do what they do best: produce gasoline-power vehicles and hybrids. Preventing people from buying cheaper foreign produce disproportionately hurts poorer families. The vice president unwittingly gives the game away: Tariffs, not markets, are the tool.
You can find my whole response here.
READER COMMENTS
nobody.really
Jun 2 2025 at 11:36pm
Oh, I think we know who the tool is here.
David Seltzer
Jun 3 2025 at 10:49am
Nobody, I suspect there are at least two “tools.” Lol.
steve
Jun 3 2025 at 10:13am
I have gone to listen to a couple of people speak and read some of the writings of the people who are supposedly influencers for Vance. To me it came across as a weird kind of right wing populism. They sort of believe in markets but only if markets do what they want and give them the outcomes they want. Some of them also seem to want to bring in some religious ideas, especially Catholicism, but they seem to be pretty selective about what part of the chosen faith they want to claim. Mostly they seem to be twisting economics and religion to try to give people a message that they think will be well received. They might even believe it too but its hard to tell.
Steve
David Henderson
Jun 3 2025 at 10:44am
That’s my impression too.
Billy Kaubashine
Jun 3 2025 at 6:33pm
Vance, and Trump, seem to have very Nixonian approaches to markets.
Mike Burnson
Jun 3 2025 at 11:06pm
Milton Friedman said decades ago that the USA was already half socialist, when the combined forces of all government spending and excessive regulation (OSHA, EPA, et al) are evaluated. That renders any consideration of “market forces” to be somewhat arbitrary and subject to different interpretation and perspectives.
Vance most certainly did NOT “launch a missile at the market”, a hyperbolic description to say the least; further, the question explicitly asked for a religious perspective. A few sentences, whether in or out of context, cannot fully answer the question. As markets globally are very highly regulated, there is no free market, per se, so “supply and demand” is not a valid response and is devoid of perspective. That is akin to saying that, since most people are not criminals, there is no need to lock your homes and cars.
The question to Vance explicitly requested a MORAL attribution to an AMORAL system (supply and demand). Government imposing mandates on EVs as a percentage of auto production is antithetical to S&D; prohibition of gasoline vehicles takes the abuse of power much further still. Subsidies to “green” energy are fiercely anti-market, as are subsidies to farmers, aircraft, steel, ad infinitum. The question to Vance did not ask about these; it asked a moral perspective. Vance’s response, what limited amount was quoted, was perfectly valid.
Jose Pablo
Jun 4 2025 at 1:05pm
Should we allow enormous volumes of Mexican produce or Chinese autos to decimate productive American industries
Mr. Vance’s question is, to put it gently, the start of a very slippery slope.
Should we allow technological innovation to decimate productive American industries? After all, innovation is the real driver behind the decimation of American manufacturing jobs
Should we have allowed online banking to decimate American bank branches?
Should we have allowed rock & roll to decimate the country and blues industry?
Should we have allowed the power loom to decimate the British textile industry? With the benefit of hindsight, we should be grateful that the Vance-like voices of that era lost that argument.
Or, closer to Mr. Vance’s heart, should the Romans have allowed Christianity to decimate the pagan gods of yesteryear?
Perhaps “we” should simply let Mr. Vance decide what should or shouldn’t be allowed at all times in the interest of “America”. Though one imagines that it has to be a rather exhausting job.
David Henderson
Jun 4 2025 at 3:51pm
Well done, Jose.