Why Trade Restrictions Always Backfire

When the U.S. imposed a tariff on magazine paper from Canada in 2015, workers at a financially troubled paper mill in Maine cheered. Less than two years later, their jobs are gone and the mill is closed.

It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Tariffs, protectionists tell us, help the domestic economy, or at least certain industries. The truth is that restrictions on imports almost always backfire. By suppressing competition, they make domestic industries less efficient; they raise prices both on imports and the competing domestic products; they don’t spur us to fix our own problems or products but instead, they make us sloppy; and they hurt consumers who face higher prices and often fewer choices.

With so many people calling for tariffs or quotas or other protectionist restrictions on trade these days, perhaps we’re overdue to re-learn some important lessons.

The Importance of Trade

Why trade at all? If we really wanted to, we could behave like a national Robinson Crusoe—keeping foreign goods out and making everything ourselves. But people trade because they want to acquire things that are cheaper or better or even unavailable at home. The fundamental principle of trade is that both sides to the transaction benefit or they wouldn’t have traded in the first place.

The most painful lesson in America’s trade history came in 1930. To combat rising unemployment at the start of the Great Depression, Congress and the President imposed the highest tariffs in a century. The thought was that if we made those foreign imports more expensive, then Americans would buy more domestic-made goods and thereby put people back to work. But foreigners retaliated by imposing tariffs on the U.S. A full-scale trade war resulted.

Trade is a two-way street. Closing the door to imports closes the door to exports. If foreigners can’t sell here, they can’t earn the dollars they need to buy here. When the 1930 tariff caused Americans to buy fewer imports, foreign sellers stopped buying American goods. As a result, American agriculture, dependent then as now on exporting farm produce, suffered plummeting prices and huge losses in the 1930s.

Americans last year imported about $2.3 trillion in physical merchandise. More than half of the total were not finished goods. Rather, they were raw materials, capital goods, industrial supplies and component parts for things like automobiles. Make all those things costlier through tariffs and you simultaneously hurt American industries that buy them. A tariff on foreign goods should be regarded as a consumption tax on Americans citizens and companies.

What About Fair Trade?
Foreign governments don’t play fair, you say! Yes, others from time to time do impose tariffs on us. But retaliating in kind is liking cutting off your nose to spite your face. It just makes things more expensive to us.

Yes, China has manipulated its currency to help its exports but does anybody think America’s central bank doesn’t manipulate the dollar, as well as interest rates? And when China reduces its currency’s value to help its exports, the flip side is that we get a lot of stuff from China at cut-rate prices that we can use to both save money and make our own industries more competitive. American automakers may not like cars coming from Japan but they sure like cheaper parts coming from China or wherever.

Freer trade causes short-term issues and necessitates adjustments in production and employment, for the same reasons the automobile challenged the buggy industry. But imposing costs and barriers to trade creates problems of its own. Trade is, and always has been, a vitally important way to strengthen an economy and give choice to consumers.

Reprinted from North State Journal.

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is President of the Foundation for Economic Education and the author of the forthcoming book, Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character and Conviction. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Immigration Controls Are Socialist

In the classical-liberal age of 19th-century Europe, there were no immigration controls. Here is how Gustav Stolper — a German economist, classical liberal, and an immigrant — described the world he had known:

This economic and social system of Europe [before 1914] was predicated on a few axiomatic principles. These principles were considered safe and unshakable…. They were freedom of movement for men, for goods, and for money. Everyone could leave his country when he wanted and travel or migrate wherever he pleased without a passport. The only European country that demanded passports (not even visas!) was Russia, looked at askance for her backwardness with an almost contemptuous smile. Who wanted to travel to Russia, anyway?

The liberal thinkers of the 19th century got a few things wrong, but they were steadfast in their defense of a free market in labor. They upheld freedom of migration as an axiomatic principle, as Stolper put it. They won the argument. And they lived in a time of unprecedented peace and economic growth.

New generations of libertarian thinkers have corrected some inconsistencies in the theories left to us by the classical liberals. However, when it comes to the free market in labor, libertarians are now divided and confused in a way that would have baffled the classical liberals.

We now have closed-border libertarians, who argue that democratic welfare states have immigration controls that are too lax. They charge politicians with allowing too much immigration, compared with the highly restricted level that they believe would be allowed in a private-property society.
Closed-border libertarians consider it just for the state to heavily restrict immigration across arbitrary international borders because, they argue, this would be the kind of action that a private community landowner would take.

Since we don’t live in a truly private-property society, how do closed-border libertarians know what a private community would do regarding immigration? They suggest that we can look at monarchies as a proxy for the behavior of true private-property landowners. The argument is that since monarchs “own” their countries, they behave more similarly to private-property landowners than democratic states do.

Well, if you believe that the state should act like a private landowner with regard to immigration, look at what the monarchs of the 19th century did. They did zip. They didn’t even ask to see your passport.
The monarchs who ran Europe in the 19th century allowed completely free migration. And they did so in a time of far higher violent crime levels, when there was objectively more to fear from strangers. The monarchies were far more open to migration than the welfare-state democracies that followed them.

The liberal economic system of the 19th century collapsed with the First World War, which was the beginning of the new era of democratic welfare states, and all the interventionism that came with it. The wars and protectionism of the interventionist states in the 20th century destroyed much of the economic integration and progress of the 19th-century liberal age.

Immigration controls were just one aspect of this wider regression — from economic freedom into socialist protectionism. The damage was huge. World trade as a share of world output did not recover to its pre–1913 level until the 1970s.

So closed-border libertarians have got it backwards. Interventionist states do not promote immigration; in fact the opposite is true.  It was the rise of the democratic welfare states, with all their controls and permits, that created immigration controls in the first place. The European monarchs who reigned before them maintained open borders.

Immigration controls are an integral component of the interventionist state — it cannot survive without them. As Harry Browne said, “Libertarians know that a free country has nothing to fear from anyone coming in or going out, while a welfare state is scared to death of poor people coming in and rich people getting out.”

In the early stages of interventionism, the emphasis is on keeping immigrants out. When state interventionism gets more intense, the emphasis switches to preventing citizens from leaving — as was the case in the USSR and all the Eastern European socialist countries.

It is true that socialist policies cannot survive free migration. Welfare states are inherently unsustainable — the problem is not the immigration; the problem is the socialist economic policies of the state. Do you advocate dismantling socialist controls? Or do you advocate propping up an unsustainable welfare state with the protectionism of immigration controls?

Ludwig von Mises, the classical-liberal economist (and immigrant) never sank to ad hoc endorsement of statist migration controls. He knew that they are antithetical to a free society. As he put it, “Without the reestablishment of freedom of migration throughout the world, there can be no lasting peace.” If libertarians today do not take a principled stance on such issues, there is little hope of our convincing anyone else to work towards a free society.

Merely because you live in a welfare state, you do not have to adopt a welfare-statist mentality and argue that people should be prevented from changing their home because they might take benefits from the state. Endorsing the state’s aggressive intervention in labor markets is unprincipled.

If you are against welfare, make the argument against the welfare system, not against immigrants on the basis that they might someday take welfare. If you are worried that immigrants might vote for politicians you dislike, be consistent and argue against the legitimacy of anyone’s voting to take your money, not just someone who recently moved.

We have a common enemy — the interventionist state. People moving from one home to another across an artificial line are not initiating aggression. They are not the enemy. Nineteenth-century classical liberals knew that. It’s a shame that so many modern libertarians have forgotten it.

Republished from the Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jake Desyllas

Jake Desyllas writes about entrepreneurship, financial independence, and freedom.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Must Read: The Three Most Pressing Threats to Liberty

A spectre is haunting the world: the spectre of radical anti-libertarian movements, each grappling with the others like scorpions in a bottle and all competing to see which can dismantle the institutions of liberty the fastest. Some are ensconced in the universities and other elite centers, and some draw their strength from populist anger.

The leftist and the rightist versions of the common anti-libertarian cause are, moreover, interconnected, with each fueling the other. All explicitly reject individual liberty, the rule of law, limited government, and freedom of exchange, and they promote instead radical, albeit aggressively opposed, forms of identity politics and authoritarianism. They are dangerous and should not be underestimated.

In various guises, such movements are challenging libertarian values and principles across the globe, especially in Europe, in America, and in parts of Asia, but their influence is felt everywhere. They share a radical rejection of the ideas of reason, liberty, and the rule of law that animated the American Founding and are, indeed, the foundations of modernity. Those who prefer constitutionalism to dictatorship, free markets to cronyist or socialist statism, free trade to autarchy, toleration to oppression, and social harmony to irreconcilable antagonism need to wake up, because our cause and the prosperity and peace it engenders are in grave danger.

THREE THREATS
At least three symbiotic threats to liberty can be seen on the horizon: a) identity politics and the zero-sum political economy of conflict and aggression they engender; b) populism and the yearning for strongman rule that invariably accompanies it; and c) radical political Islamism. They share certain common intellectual fountainheads and form an interlocking network, energizing each other at the expense of the classical liberal consensus.


Although all those movements are shot through with fallacies, especially economic fallacies, they are not driven merely by lack of understanding of economic principles, as so many statist interventions are. While most support for the minimum wage, trade restrictions, or prohibition of narcotics rests on factual misapprehensions of their consequences, the intellectual leaders of these illiberal movements are generally not thoughtless people.

They often understand libertarian ideas fairly well, and they reject them root and branch. They believe that the ideas of equality before the law, of rule-based legal and political systems, of toleration and freedom of thought and speech, of voluntary trade — especially among strangers — for mutual benefit, and of imprescriptible and equal individual rights are phony, self-interested camouflage for exploitation promoted by evil elites, and that those who uphold them are either evil themselves or hopelessly naïve.

It’s time for advocates of liberty to realize that some people reject liberty for others (and even for themselves) not merely because they don’t understand economics or because they will realize material benefits from undermining the rule of law, but because they oppose the principles and the practice of liberty. They don’t seek equality before the law; they reject it and prefer politics based on unequal identities. They don’t believe in your right to disagree with them and they certainly won’t defend your right to do so. They consider trade a plot of some sort. And they prefer a politics of will to one of processes. They will attack anyone for offending their sacred identities. They do not want to “live and let live.”

IDENTITY POLITICS

It took decades, but a robustly anti-libertarian and anti-toleration movement on the left side of the spectrum has effectively taken over a great deal of academia in much of Europe, North America, and other countries. Their goal is to use administrative punishment, intimidation, and disruption to suppress all views that they consider incompatible with their vision. This movement is rooted in the writings of a German Marxist who studied under the Nazi theoretician Martin Heidegger. His name was Herbert Marcuse, and after he came to the United States he became very influential on the far left.

Marcuse’s 1965 essay “Repressive Tolerance” argued that to achieve liberation, or at least his vision thereof, would require

the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc. Moreover, the restoration of freedom of thought may necessitate new and rigid restrictions on teachings and practices in the educational institutions which, by their very methods and concepts, serve to enclose the mind within the established universe of discourse and behavior – thereby precluding a priori a rational evaluation of the alternatives.

For Marcuse, as for his contemporary followers (many of whom have never heard of him), “Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.” Following that script, those who dissent from the new orthodoxy are shouted down, denied platforms, forced into sensitivity reeducation courses, forbidden from speaking, intimidated, mobbed, and even threatened with violence to get them to shut up. Consider again University of Missouri professor Melissa Click’s call to her backers — “Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle over here!” That was Marcuse’s message in action.

Political correctness on the left has called forth an equally anti-libertarian reaction on the right. The far-right movements that are gaining ground in Europe and the “alt-right” fusion of populism and white nationalism in the United States have attracted followers who are convinced that their existence or way of life is threatened by capitalism, by free trade, and by ethnic pluralism, but they have been infuriated and stirred into action by the illiberal left-wing domination of speech and witch hunts against dissidents. In a sense they have become the mirror image of their persecutors. In European parties they have resurrected the poisonous political ideologies and language of the 1930s, and in the United States they have been energized by and attached themselves to the Trump movement, with its attacks on international trade, its denigration of Mexicans and Muslims, and its stirring up of resentment against elites.


The call for politically correct “safe spaces” reserved for minorities is mirrored by white nationalists who call for affirming “white identity” and a “white nation.” The doyen of white nationalism, also known as “Identitarianism,” in the United States, Jared Taylor, recently told National Public Radio that “the natural tendency of human nature is tribal. When black people or Asians or Hispanics express a desire to live with people like themselves, express a preference for their own culture, their own heritage, there’s considered nothing wrong about that. It’s only when whites say, well, yes, I prefer the culture of Europe and I prefer to be around white people — for some reason, and only for whites, this is considered the profoundest sort of immorality.” One collectivism begets another.
Philosophy professor Slavoz Žižek is an influential voice on the far left, better known in Europe than America, but with a growing following worldwide. Žižek insists that freedom in liberal societies is an illusion and embraces the common thread tying the illiberal left with the illiberal right.

That thread runs through the work of the National Socialist law professor Carl Schmitt, a collaborator of Martin Heidegger who famously reduced “the specific political distinction … to that between friend and enemy.” Žižek affirms “the unconditional primacy of the inherent antagonism as constitutive of the political.” Social harmony and “live and let live” philosophies for such thinkers are just so much self-delusion; for them what is real is the struggle for dominance. Indeed, in a very deep sense, the flesh-and-blood individuated person does not even exist for such thinkers, for what truly exists are social forces or identities; indeed, the “individual” is nothing but the instantiation of forces or collective identities that are inherently antagonistic to each other.

POPULIST AUTHORITARIANISM

Populism often parallels the various forms of identity politics, but adds angry resentment of “elites,” crackpot political economy, and a yearning for a leader who can focus the authentic will of the people. Populist movements have erupted in numerous countries, from Poland and Spain to the Philippines and the United States. Michael Kazin in his book The Populist Persuasion offers a definition of populism: “a language whose speakers conceive of ordinary people as a noble assemblage not bounded narrowly by class, view their elite opponents as self-serving and undemocratic, and seek to mobilize the former against the latter.” The normal tendency of such movements is to follow a charismatic leader who, in his or her own person, embodies the people and focuses the popular will.

A common theme among populists is to empower a leader who can cut through procedures, rules, checks and balances, and protected rights, privileges, and immunities and “just get things done.” In The Road to Serfdom F. A. Hayek described that impatience with rules as the prelude to totalitarianism: “It is the general demand for quick and determined central government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic processes which make action for action’s sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough to ‘get things done’ who exercises the greatest appeal.”

Populist and authoritarian parties have taken over and are cementing their power in several states. In Russia Vladimir Putin has created a new authoritarian government that dominates all other institutions in society and depends on his own personal decisions. Putin and his cronies systematically and completely took over the media and used it to generate a deep feeling of a nation under siege, whose uniquely great culture is constantly threatened by its neighbors, and which is defended only by the strong hand of the leader.

The government of Hungary, after securing a two-thirds parliamentary majority in 2010, began to institutionalize control of all organs of the state by ruling Fidesz party loyalists. It depicted its leader, Viktor Orbán, as a national savior and launched an increasingly anti-libertarian agenda of nationalization, cronyism, and restrictions on freedom of speech. Orbán declared that “[We are] breaking with the dogmas and ideologies that have been adopted by the West and keeping ourselves independent from them … to construct a new state built on illiberal and national foundations within the European Union.” (“Within the European Union” translates into “subsidized by the taxpayers of other countries.”)

After Fidesz’s 2010 victory, the leader of the nationalist and anti-market Polish Law and Justice Party Jaroslaw Kaczyński declared Orbán’s nationalist, populist, and cronyist strategy “an example of how we can win.” Kaczyński managed to combine identity politics with populism to oust the center right government of a country with a growing economy and then began to institute the kinds of populist and protectionist measures that have proven themselves inimical to prosperity. The classical liberal Timbro Institute of Sweden’s 2016 Timbro Authoritarian Populism Indexconcluded that on both left and right, in contemporary Europe “populism is not a temporary challenge but a permanent threat.”
Putin, the pioneer in the trend toward authoritarianism, has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into promoting anti-libertarian populism across Europe and through a sophisticated global media empire, including RT and Sputnik News, as well as a network of internet troll factories and numerous made-to-order websites. Russian media pioneer Peter Pomerantsev in his remarkable book Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible notes that “the Kremlin switches messages at will to its advantages… . European rightwing nationalists are seduced with an antiEU message; the Far Left is co-opted with tales of fighting US hegemony; US religious conservatives are convinced by the Kremlin’s fight against homosexuality.” Clouds of lies, denunciations, denials, and more are issued to undermine the confidence of defenders of classical liberal institutions. It’s a well-financed post-modern assault on truth in the service of dictatorship.

WHAT TRIGGERS AUTHORITARIANISM?

Such movements are not solely the result of a lack of education. They are deeply ideological in character. They embrace collectivism and authoritarianism and reject individualism and constitutional rules. What has caused them to generate so much popular support so rapidly?
Current research indicates that authoritarian responses are triggered by the perception of threats to physical security, group identity, and social status. When all three are present, conditions are ripe for an explosion of authoritarianism.

Radical Islamist violence, recycled through the 24/7 news cycle to seem even more widespread and common than it is, certainly presents an apparently alarming external threat. Group integrity and status are also at stake. Research by the political scientist Karen Stenner supports the idea that there is an authoritarian predisposition that is triggered by “normative threats,” that is perceptions that traditional views are endangered or no longer shared across a community. Such normative threats trigger a response among those predisposed to authoritarianism to become active “boundary-maintainers, norm-enforcers, and cheerleaders for authority.” Threats to social status further exacerbate such authoritarian responses.

The core support for authoritarian populist movements in Europe, as well as the radical fringe of the Trump movement in America, has been less-educated white males, who have seen their relative social status decline as those of others (females and foreigners) have risen.
In the United States, white males 30-49 with high school degrees or less have seen their labor force participation rates drop precipitously, to the point where more than one in five are not even seeking work but have left the labor force entirely. Without remunerative and fulfilling work they have experienced a substantial loss of social status. Absolute living standards can rise for all (and living standards and real wages have risen dramatically over the past decades), but relative status cannot rise for all. If some groups are rising, others must be falling. Those in the groups that have been falling and who are predisposed to authoritarianism will be strongly drawn to authoritarian figures who promise to make things right, or to restore lost greatness.

RADICAL ISLAMISM

Radical Islamism mirrors some of the themes of the other anti-libertarian movements, including identity politics (the belief that the community of believers is at war with all infidels), authoritarian populist fears of threats to group identity and social status, and enthusiasm for charismatic leaders who will “Make Islam Great Again.” Radical Islamism even shares with the far left and far right common intellectual roots in European fascist political ideology and collectivist ideas of “authenticity.”


The Islamist movement in Iran that created the first “Islamic Republic” was deeply influenced by European Fascist thinkers, notably Martin Heidegger. Ahmad Fardid promoted Heidegger’s toxic ideas in Iran, and his follower Jalal Al-e Ahmad denounced alleged western threats to the authentic identity of Iran in his book Westoxification. As Heidegger pronounced after the victory of the Nazi Party, the age of liberalism was “the I-time. Now is the Wetime.” Ecstatic collectivism promised to deliver the German people from their “inauthentically historical existence,” and lead them toward “authenticity,” the cause now embraced by social justice warriors, alt-right “identitarians,” and radical Islamists alike.

All those trends are mutually reinforcing: Each demonizes the other; and as one grows, so grows the existential threat against which the others struggle. The growth of radical Islam draws recruits to populist parties in Europe (and America), and the hostility toward Muslims and their alienation from their societies increases the ability of Islamic State and other groups to recruit. At the same time, politically correct social justice warriors cannot bring themselves to condemn radical Islamism — after all, isn’t it just a response to the colonial oppression visited on non-Christians by the dominant Christian/white/European hegemony? — and often they find themselves not only unable to condemn Islamist crimes, but they even promote anti-Semitism. Indeed, hostility to Jews and to capitalism is a disturbingly common feature of all three movements.

THE NEED TO DEFEND LIBERTY

The various anti-libertarian movements grow at the expense, not of each other, but of the center, as it were, made up of tolerant producing and trading members of civil society who live, whether consciously or not, by the precepts of classical liberalism. We have seen that dynamic before, in the 1930s, when collectivist movements vied with each other to destroy freedom as fast as they could. The Fascists claimed that only they could defend against Bolshevism. The Bolshevists mobilized to smash Fascism. They fought each other, but they had far more in common than either wished to admit.

Unfortunately, the best argument that the defenders of civil society typically offer in response to those challenges is that the complex of personal liberty, the rule of law, and free markets creates more prosperity and a more commodious life than the alternatives. That’s true, but it’s not enough to deflect the damaging blows of the illiberal triumvirate of identity politics, authoritarian populism, and radical Islamism. The moral goodness of liberty needs to be upheld, not only in head-to-head encounters with adversaries, but as a means of stiffening the resistance of classical liberals, lest they continue retreating. Freedom is not an illusion, but a great and noble goal. A life of freedom is better in every respect than a life of submission to others. Violence and antagonism are not the foundation of culture, but their negation.

Now is the time to defend the liberty that makes possible a global civilization that enables friendship, family, cooperation, trade, mutual benefit, science, wisdom — in a word, life — and to challenge the modern anti-libertarian triumvirate and reveal the emptiness at its heart.

The piece first appeared as a Cato Policy Report

Tom G. Palmer

Dr. Palmer is executive vice president for international programs at the Atlas Network and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and director of the Institute's educational program, Cato University.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Save the Elephants! ... by Owning Them

100 leading conservationists, politicians, and celebrities addressed an open letter to the government of the United Kingdom (which has been published by the Telegraph), asking for a ban on ivory trade. They want Her Majesty's Government to become a global leader on the prohibition of wildlife trade and help combat African poaching groups. Since we know how beneficial prohibition is for criminal gangs, the only group rejoicing over this leap forward would be the poachers themselves.

The alternative lies in the private sector.

Were I presented with the opportunity to become the Al Capone of the ivory  trade, never would the temptation be as strong as now.
Were I presented with the opportunity to become the Al Capone of the ivory trade, never would the temptation be as strong as now. Governments are immensely successful at making products under prohibition enormously valuable. As Milton Friedman said regarding drug prohibition:

“If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.”

Every time there is a major call for an outright ban on ivory products, prices skyrocket, which ends up incentivising poachers to shoot more elephants. This has created a sort of cat-and-mouse game in which the volatility of ivory pricing is interdependent with outcries by NGOs. When the Chinese ivory prices tripled in 2015 due to increased calls for bans, wildlife NGOs said that the market was out of control and that "there is need for immediate action." There was no change in legislation, and when the Chinese prices fell back to their original level five months later, the same NGOs claimed their work to be going in the right direction.

Conservation from Private Property

If we want to talk about the preservation of endangered species such as elephants, then let's not engage polemic assertions destined to sell a newspaper or get donations shipped in. Some African countries have taken action regarding poaching: the privatization of elephants is provably effective.
Let's take the example of trophy hunting.

This hunting sport has gotten increasingly popular over the years. As National Geographic reported, these hunters imported more than 1.26 million trophies to the United States between the years 2005 and 2014, which is an average of 126,000 trophy imports a year, or 345 a day.
Trophy hunting, however, is not the reason these species are endangered in the first place. They suffer considerably more from loss of habitat and poaching. In the case of loss of habitat, the endangered animals are driven out due to agricultural expansion for the harvesting of timber, wood, or fuel.


The local population can be incentivised economically to protect these animals. In Namibia, the revenue from trophy hunting is the main revenue source for the funding of wildlife conservancies, and in South Africa, trophy hunting reportedly incentivised locals to give rhinoceros land to live on and protect them from poachers (Conservation Magazine, 2015). This evolution has led the number of existing rhinoceros to jump from 100 in 1916 to over 18,000 today (World Wildlife Fund, 2016). According to South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs, the total revenue from trophy hunting was close to R807 million (59.3 USD) in 2012 and just over R1 billion (73.5 USD) in 2013.

Elephants are victims of the tragedy of the commons: maximizing profits results in shooting as many animals as possible. The only protective measure we can install is private property rights through the rule of law. If elephants possess a certain utility, notably harvesting ivory, then we should prefer they were owned privately, since their owners would be incentivised to protect them.

No ban on the international trade of a good could ever do the same.

Bill Wirtz

Bill Wirtz studies French Law at the University of Lorraine in Nancy, France.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Protectionism Will Make America Poor, Not Great

President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-trade rhetoric has proven bad economics can make good politics. Fortunately, after Mr. Trump assumes office, his trade policies will likely be better than his campaign rhetoric.

Many factors contributed to Trump’s victory. His upset wins in the so-called "Rust Belt" states, which are typically Democratic strongholds, can be linked to his promise to revive US manufacturing by restricting “unfair” trade with Mexico, China, and other countries.

This promise resonated well with union workers. Trump won the union vote in Ohio, tied Clinton among union households in Michigan, and narrowly lost the union vote in Wisconsin by 8 percentage points – a huge improvement over 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

The reason Mr. Trump’s rhetoric on trade resonated with so many blue collar voters is because they believe a popular fallacy: foreign trade destroys US jobs.

According to exit polls, 50 percent of voters in Wisconsin and Michigan agreed with the notion that international trade kills American jobs. Similarly, 53 percent of Pennsylvanian voters and 48 percent of Ohio voters bought into this fallacy. Among the voters in the four states who expressed agreement with the trade fallacy, Trump’s support ranged from 59 percent in Michigan to 67 percent in Ohio.
When imports increase, jobs frequently are lost in competing domestic industries. What voters don't realize is these same imports create jobs elsewhere in the economy.
Yet, as any trade economist understands, the truth is trade neither creates nor destroys jobs.


When imports increase, jobs frequently are lost in domestic industries that compete with those imports. This is all many voters see. What they don’t realize is these very same imports create jobs elsewhere in the economy.

More than half of all imports are intermediate components or raw materials that go into the production of other goods and services. When international trade makes these materials and parts cheaper and more widely available, the domestic industries that use these items become more competitive, enabling them to sell more products, which results in expansion and increases in jobs.
Similarly, when foreigners receive dollars by exporting to the United States they’re able to buy more, which increases the market for U.S. exports. This, too, powers economic expansion and boosts employment in U.S. export industries.

International trade changes the mix, not the number, of jobs in the United States. In fact, the classic economic case for free trade rests on the reshuffling of jobs. The reshuffling allows American workers to perform the tasks at which they are relatively more productive, while foreigners do the same.

Exit polls showed only a small minority (fewer than 13 percent) of voters in the Rust Belt battleground states understood international trade has no net effect on the number of jobs. Candidate Trump benefited from their ignorance.

If Mr. Trump runs for re-election in four years, voters are likely to care less about his rhetoric and more about the state of the economy. The protectionist policies he promoted during the campaign would shrink the economy and make the United States poorer.

President Trump will have to choose between candidate Trump’s promises. He can embrace international trade and contribute to making America great, or he can follow his protectionist rhetoric at the expense of American greatness. But he can’t have it both ways.

This first appeared at Independent Institute.

Benjamin Powell

Benjamin Powell is the Director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University and a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The FDA's War on Vaping Will Cost Millions of Lives

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) is a controversial pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services. During his Senate confirmation hearings, Democrats were clearly concerned about Price’s well-known desire to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. For his part, however, Price testified that his focus is on “improving the health and well-being of Americans.” If that is the case, there’s one simple change he could make as head of Health and Human Services that has the potential to save millions of American lives: stop the Food and Drug Administration’s dangerously foolish war on vaping.

Electronic cigarettes are likely not risk-free, but they are clearly less harmful than traditional cigarettes.
Thanks to the efforts of public health advocates, tobacco usage has declined from its height of popularity in the 1950s and 60s when more than 40% of all American adults smoked, down to just about 15% today. However, in recent years the rate of decline has slowed and smoking is a particularly stubborn habit among certain groups of people, especially those who are low-income and have less education. Considering that smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes kills about half of those with the habit, smoking cessation is, understandably, a top priority for health officials.
Electronic cigarettes or vapes, which involve no combustion, are likely not risk-free in the long-term, but they are clearly less harmful than traditional cigarettes. According to a Britain’s Department of Health, the available e-cigarette brands are at least 95 percent less harmful than regular cigarettes. According to a study published last summer, these tobacco alternatives could even lead to a 21 percent decline in deaths from smoking-related diseases for people born after 1997—even after taking into account possible harms people might suffer from vaping who otherwise would not have smoked at all. Put simply, even given the risks associated with vaping, there is a net public health gain from their existence in the market. This is why CEI, along with a coalition of other groups dedicated to free markets and innovation have signed a coalition letter imploring Congress to step in and stop the FDA’s plan to destroy the vaping market.

Twisted Incentives

The FDA’s so-called “Deeming Rule” took effect on August 16, 2016 and requires vaping products to undergo a pre-approval process so onerous and expensive it will functionally eliminate most, if not all, of the electronic cigarettes currently on the market. Those that remain will almost certainly become much more expensive. The FDA estimates that each application will cost about $330,000 and that companies will need to file 20 applications per product in the first two years—putting the total per product cost at $6 million. Even this number is high enough that only the largest tobacco companies could afford filing applications (with no guarantee that they will be approved), but other observers, like the National Center for Public Policy Research, estimate that the per-application is much higher, possibly $1 million. Even FDA admits that 99 percent of products won’t even bother filing applications, but will simply disappear from the market, leaving those consumers who have successfully switched from traditional cigarettes with fewer options and putting them at risk of returning to their deadly habit.

Why would FDA, which is charged with promoting the introduction of products that aid in tobacco cessation, implement rules that even it admits will result in the elimination of such products? The short answer is: they are scared.

The free market, because it bypassed regulation, succeeded where government health agencies failed.

The FDA generally isn’t held responsible for the suffering and deaths that result from a medicine, product, or service that wasn’t available due to its slow and prohibitively expensive approval process. It is, however, blamed for products that cause harm 20 or 30 years down the line. So, they err on the side of caution. The problem with vaping is, the cat is out of the bag.

Vaping burst onto the market during the last decade, a new technology that evolved rapidly with thousands of producers of devices and juices responding to consumer demand and bypassing regulatory approval. As a result of this vibrancy and customizability, electronic cigarettes—unlike the FDA-approved “big pharma” inhalers that preceded them—actually became popular. And that’s, perhaps, what scares FDA the most: the free market, because it bypassed regulation, succeeded where government health agencies failed. By responding to consumer demand, the market actually created a tobacco cessation product that works.

Teenagers Smoke Too

Sure, they’ll say they’re doing it “for the children,” because e-cigarettes contain nicotine—a highly addictive chemical—but that is merely a red herring. 48 states already banned vape sales to minors prior to the FDA’s new rules. Furthermore, as much as nobody wants to admit it, taking vapes out of the hands of babes results in more of them smoking traditional cigarettes. In a study published last March, researchers at Cornell University found that teen smoking of traditional tobacco products—which on average contain much more nicotine than vape juice—went up by nearly 12 percent in states that instituted age limits on purchases of e-cigarettes.

If Rep. Price wants to take a big first step as Secretary of Health and Human Services to improve public health, he should listen to the current Director of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, Mitch Zeller, who declared that “If we could get all those people [who smoke] to completely switch all of their cigarettes to noncombustible cigarettes, it would be good for public health.” As researchers Konstantinos E. Farsalinos and Riccardo Polosa of the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center put it, electronic cigarettes “represent a historical opportunity to save millions of lives and significantly reduce the burden of smoking-related diseases worldwide.” And accomplishing this laudable goal doesn’t even require government handouts—it merely demands the government agency get out of the way of the free market.

Republished from CEI.

Michelle Minton

Michelle Minton is the Competitive Enterprise Institute's fellow specializing in consumer policy, including the regulation of alcohol, food, and gambling.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Full Text of Trump Executive Order: Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States

Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq., and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Purpose. The visa-issuance process plays a crucial role in detecting individuals with terrorist ties and stopping them from entering the United States. Perhaps in no instance was that more apparent than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when State Department policy prevented consular officers from properly scrutinizing the visa applications of several of the 19 foreign nationals who went on to murder nearly 3,000 Americans. And while the visa-issuance process was reviewed and amended after the September 11 attacks to better detect would-be terrorists from receiving visas, these measures did not stop attacks by foreign nationals who were admitted to the United States.

Numerous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since September 11, 2001, including foreign nationals who entered the United States after receiving visitor, student, or employment visas, or who entered through the United States refugee resettlement program. Deteriorating conditions in certain countries due to war, strife, disaster, and civil unrest increase the likelihood that terrorists will use any means possible to enter the United States. The United States must be vigilant during the visa-issuance process to ensure that those approved for admission do not intend to harm Americans and that they have no ties to terrorism.

In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States; and to prevent the admission of foreign nationals who intend to exploit United States immigration laws for malevolent purposes.

Sec. 3. Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries of Particular Concern. (a) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall immediately conduct a review to determine the information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat.

(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall submit to the President a report on the results of the review described in subsection (a) of this section, including the Secretary of Homeland Security’s determination of the information needed for adjudications and a list of countries that do not provide adequate information, within 30 days of the date of this order. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide a copy of the report to the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence.

(c) To temporarily reduce investigative burdens on relevant agencies during the review period described in subsection (a) of this section, to ensure the proper review and maximum utilization of available resources for the screening of foreign nationals, and to ensure that adequate standards are established to prevent infiltration by foreign terrorists or criminals, pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas).

(d) Immediately upon receipt of the report described in subsection (b) of this section regarding the information needed for adjudications, the Secretary of State shall request all foreign governments that do not supply such information to start providing such information regarding their nationals within 60 days of notification.

(e) After the 60-day period described in subsection (d) of this section expires, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the President a list of countries recommended for inclusion on a Presidential proclamation that would prohibit the entry of foreign nationals (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas) from countries that do not provide the information requested pursuant to subsection (d) of this section until compliance occurs.

(f) At any point after submitting the list described in subsection (e) of this section, the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security may submit to the President the names of any additional countries recommended for similar treatment.

(g) Notwithstanding a suspension pursuant to subsection (c) of this section or pursuant to a Presidential proclamation described in subsection (e) of this section, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may, on a case-by-case basis, and when in the national interest, issue visas or other immigration benefits to nationals of countries for which visas and benefits are otherwise blocked.

(h) The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall submit to the President a joint report on the progress in implementing this orderwithin 30 days of the date of this order, a second report within 60 daysof the date of this order, a third report within 90 days of the date of this order, and a fourth report within 120 days of the date of this order.

Sec. 4. Implementing Uniform Screening Standards for All Immigration Programs. (a) The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall implement a program, as part of the adjudication process for immigration benefits, to identify individuals seeking to enter the United States on a fraudulent basis with the intent to cause harm, or who are at risk of causing harm subsequent to their admission. This program will include the development of a uniform screening standard and procedure, such as in-person interviews; a database of identity documents proffered by applicants to ensure that duplicate documents are not used by multiple applicants; amended application forms that include questions aimed at identifying fraudulent answers and malicious intent; a mechanism to ensure that the applicant is who the applicant claims to be; a process to evaluate the applicant’s likelihood of becoming a positively contributing member of society and the applicant’s ability to make contributions to the national interest; and a mechanism to assess whether or not the applicant has the intent to commit criminal or terrorist acts after entering the United States.

(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Secretary of State, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, shall submit to the President an initial report on the progress of this directive within 60 days of the date of this order, a second report within 100 days of the date of this order, and a third report within 200 days of the date of this order.

Sec. 5. Realignment of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for Fiscal Year 2017. (a) The Secretary of State shall suspend the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days. During the 120-day period, the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Secretary of Homeland Security and in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, shall review the USRAP application and adjudication process to determine what additional procedures should be taken to ensure that those approved for refugee admission do not pose a threat to the security and welfare of the United States, and shall implement such additional procedures. Refugee applicants who are already in the USRAP process may be admitted upon the initiation and completion of these revised procedures. Upon the date that is 120 days after the date of this order, the Secretary of State shall resume USRAP admissions only for nationals of countries for which the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence have jointly determined that such additional procedures are adequate to ensure the security and welfare of the United States.

(b) Upon the resumption of USRAP admissions, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality. Where necessary and appropriate, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall recommend legislation to the President that would assist with such prioritization.

(c) Pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the USRAP to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest.

(d) Pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the entry of more than 50,000 refugees in fiscal year 2017 would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I determine that additional admissions would be in the national interest.

(e) Notwithstanding the temporary suspension imposed pursuant to subsection (a) of this section, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may jointly determine to admit individuals to the United States as refugees on a case-by-case basis, in their discretion, but only so long as they determine that the admission of such individuals as refugees is in the national interest — including when the person is a religious minority in his country of nationality facing religious persecution, when admitting the person would enable the United States to conform its conduct to a preexisting international agreement, or when the person is already in transit and denying admission would cause undue hardship — and it would not pose a risk to the security or welfare of the United States.

(f) The Secretary of State shall submit to the President an initial report on the progress of the directive in subsection (b) of this section regarding prioritization of claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution within 100 days of the date of this order and shall submit a second report within 200 days of the date of this order.

(g) It is the policy of the executive branch that, to the extent permitted by law and as practicable, State and local jurisdictions be granted a role in the process of determining the placement or settlement in their jurisdictions of aliens eligible to be admitted to the United States as refugees. To that end, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall examine existing law to determine the extent to which, consistent with applicable law, State and local jurisdictions may have greater involvement in the process of determining the placement or resettlement of refugees in their jurisdictions, and shall devise a proposal to lawfully promote such involvement.

Sec. 6. Rescission of Exercise of Authority Relating to the Terrorism Grounds of Inadmissibility. The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall, in consultation with the Attorney General, consider rescinding the exercises of authority in section 212 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182, relating to the terrorism grounds of inadmissibility, as well as any related implementing memoranda.

Sec. 7. Expedited Completion of the Biometric Entry-Exit Tracking System. (a) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall expedite the completion and implementation of a biometric entry-exit tracking system for all travelers to the United States, as recommended by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit to the President periodic reports on the progress of the directive contained in subsection (a) of this section. The initial report shall be submitted within 100 days of the date of this order, a second report shall be submitted within 200 days of the date of this order, and a third report shall be submitted within 365 days of the date of this order. Further, the Secretary shall submit a report every 180 days thereafter until the system is fully deployed and operational.

Sec. 8. Visa Interview Security. (a) The Secretary of State shall immediately suspend the Visa Interview Waiver Program and ensure compliance with section 222 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1222, which requires that all individuals seeking a nonimmigrant visa undergo an in-person interview, subject to specific statutory exceptions.

(b) To the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations, the Secretary of State shall immediately expand the Consular Fellows Program, including by substantially increasing the number of Fellows, lengthening or making permanent the period of service, and making language training at the Foreign Service Institute available to Fellows for assignment to posts outside of their area of core linguistic ability, to ensure that non-immigrant visa-interview wait times are not unduly affected.

Sec. 9. Visa Validity Reciprocity. The Secretary of State shall review all nonimmigrant visa reciprocity agreements to ensure that they are, with respect to each visa classification, truly reciprocal insofar as practicable with respect to validity period and fees, as required by sections 221(c) and 281 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1201(c) and 1351, and other treatment. If a country does not treat United States nationals seeking nonimmigrant visas in a reciprocal manner, the Secretary of State shall adjust the visa validity period, fee schedule, or other treatment to match the treatment of United States nationals by the foreign country, to the extent practicable.

Sec. 10. Transparency and Data Collection. (a) To be more transparent with the American people, and to more effectively implement policies and practices that serve the national interest, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall, consistent with applicable law and national security, collect and make publicly available within 180 days, and every 180 days thereafter:

(i) information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been charged with terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; convicted of terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; or removed from the United States based on terrorism-related activity, affiliation, or material support to a terrorism-related organization, or any other national security reasons since the date of this order or the last reporting period, whichever is later;

(ii) information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been radicalized after entry into the United States and engaged in terrorism-related acts, or who have provided material support to terrorism-related organizations in countries that pose a threat to the United States, since the date of this order or the last reporting period, whichever is later; and

(iii) information regarding the number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women, including honor killings, in the United States by foreign nationals, since the date of this order or the last reporting period, whichever is later; and

(iv) any other information relevant to public safety and security as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General, including information on the immigration status of foreign nationals charged with major offenses.

(b) The Secretary of State shall, within one year of the date of this order, provide a report on the estimated long-term costs of the USRAP at the Federal, State, and local levels.

Sec. 11. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

Full Text of Trump Executive Order: Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements

BORDER SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT IMPROVEMENTS

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.) (INA), the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (Public Law 109 367) (Secure Fence Act), and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (Public Law 104 208 Div. C) (IIRIRA), and in order to ensure the safety and territorial integrity of the United States as well as to ensure that the Nation's immigration laws are faithfully executed, I hereby order as follows:

Section 1.  Purpose.  Border security is critically important to the national security of the United States.  Aliens who illegally enter the United States without inspection or admission present a significant threat to national security and public safety.  Such aliens have not been identified or inspected by Federal immigration officers to determine their admissibility to the United States.  The recent surge of illegal immigration at the southern border with Mexico has placed a significant strain on Federal resources and overwhelmed agencies charged with border security and immigration enforcement, as well as the local communities into which many of the aliens are placed.

Transnational criminal organizations operate sophisticated drug- and human-trafficking networks and smuggling operations on both sides of the southern border, contributing to a significant increase in violent crime and United States deaths from dangerous drugs.  Among those who illegally enter are those who seek to harm Americans through acts of terror or criminal conduct.  Continued illegal immigration presents a clear and present danger to the interests of the United States.

Federal immigration law both imposes the responsibility and provides the means for the Federal Government, in cooperation with border States, to secure the Nation's southern border.  Although Federal immigration law provides a robust framework for Federal-State partnership in enforcing our immigration laws    and the Congress has authorized and provided appropriations to secure our borders    the Federal Government has failed to discharge this basic sovereign responsibility.  The purpose of this order is to direct executive departments and agencies (agencies) to deploy all lawful means to secure the Nation's southern border, to prevent further illegal immigration into the United States, and to repatriate illegal aliens swiftly, consistently, and humanely.

Sec. 2.  Policy.  It is the policy of the executive branch to:

(a)  secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border, monitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism;

(b)  detain individuals apprehended on suspicion of violating Federal or State law, including Federal immigration law, pending further proceedings regarding those violations;

(c)  expedite determinations of apprehended individuals' claims of eligibility to remain in the United States;

(d)  remove promptly those individuals whose legal claims to remain in the United States have been lawfully rejected, after any appropriate civil or criminal sanctions have been imposed; and

(e)  cooperate fully with States and local law enforcement in enacting Federal-State partnerships to enforce Federal immigration priorities, as well as State monitoring and detention programs that are consistent with Federal law and do not undermine Federal immigration priorities.

Sec. 3.  Definitions.  (a)  "Asylum officer" has the meaning given the term in section 235(b)(1)(E) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(1)).

(b)  "Southern border" shall mean the contiguous land border between the United States and Mexico, including all points of entry.

(c)  "Border States" shall mean the States of the United States immediately adjacent to the contiguous land border between the United States and Mexico.

(d)  Except as otherwise noted, "the Secretary" shall refer to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

(e)  "Wall" shall mean a contiguous, physical wall or other similarly secure, contiguous, and impassable physical barrier.

(f)  "Executive department" shall have the meaning given in section 101 of title 5, United States Code.

(g)  "Regulations" shall mean any and all Federal rules, regulations, and directives lawfully promulgated by agencies.

(h)  "Operational control" shall mean the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.

Sec. 4.  Physical Security of the Southern Border of the United States.  The Secretary shall immediately take the following steps to obtain complete operational control, as determined by the Secretary, of the southern border:

(a)  In accordance with existing law, including the Secure Fence Act and IIRIRA, take all appropriate steps to immediately plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border, using appropriate materials and technology to most effectively achieve complete operational control of the southern border;

(b)  Identify and, to the extent permitted by law, allocate all sources of Federal funds for the planning, designing, and constructing of a physical wall along the southern border;

(c)  Project and develop long-term funding requirements for the wall, including preparing Congressional budget requests for the current and upcoming fiscal years; and

(d)  Produce a comprehensive study of the security of the southern border, to be completed within 180 days of this order, that shall include the current state of southern border security, all geophysical and topographical aspects of the southern border, the availability of Federal and State resources necessary to achieve complete operational control of the southern border, and a strategy to obtain and maintain complete operational control of the southern border.

Sec. 5.  Detention Facilities.  (a)  The Secretary shall take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately construct, operate, control, or establish contracts to construct, operate, or control facilities to detain aliens at or near the land border with Mexico.

(b)  The Secretary shall take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately assign asylum officers to immigration detention facilities for the purpose of accepting asylum referrals and conducting credible fear determinations pursuant to section 235(b)(1) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(1)) and applicable regulations and reasonable fear determinations pursuant to applicable regulations.

(c)  The Attorney General shall take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately assign immigration judges to immigration detention facilities operated or controlled by the Secretary, or operated or controlled pursuant to contract by the Secretary, for the purpose of conducting proceedings authorized under title 8, chapter 12, subchapter II, United States Code.

Sec. 6.  Detention for Illegal Entry.  The Secretary shall immediately take all appropriate actions to ensure the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law pending the outcome of their removal proceedings or their removal from the country to the extent permitted by law.  The Secretary shall issue new policy guidance to all Department of Homeland Security personnel regarding the appropriate and consistent use of lawful detention authority under the INA, including the termination of the practice commonly known as "catch and release," whereby aliens are routinely released in the United States shortly after their apprehension for violations of immigration law.

Sec. 7.  Return to Territory.  The Secretary shall take appropriate action, consistent with the requirements of section 1232 of title 8, United States Code, to ensure that aliens described in section 235(b)(2)(C) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2)(C)) are returned to the territory from which they came pending a formal removal proceeding.

Sec. 8.  Additional Border Patrol Agents.  Subject to available appropriations, the Secretary, through the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, shall take all appropriate action to hire 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents, and all appropriate action to ensure that such agents enter on duty and are assigned to duty stations as soon as is practicable.

Sec. 9.  Foreign Aid Reporting Requirements.  The head of each executive department and agency shall identify and quantify all sources of direct and indirect Federal aid or assistance to the Government of Mexico on an annual basis over the past five years, including all bilateral and multilateral development aid, economic assistance, humanitarian aid, and military aid.  Within 30 days of the date of this order, the head of each executive department and agency shall submit this information to the Secretary of State.  Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Secretary shall submit to the President a consolidated report reflecting the levels of such aid and assistance that has been provided annually, over each of the past five years.

Sec. 10.  Federal-State Agreements.  It is the policy of the executive branch to empower State and local law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of an immigration officer in the interior of the United States to the maximum extent permitted by law.

(a)  In furtherance of this policy, the Secretary shall immediately take appropriate action to engage with the Governors of the States, as well as local officials, for the purpose of preparing to enter into agreements under section 287(g) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1357(g)).

(b)  To the extent permitted by law, and with the consent of State or local officials, as appropriate, the Secretary shall take appropriate action, through agreements under section 287(g) of the INA, or otherwise, to authorize State and local law enforcement officials, as the Secretary determines are qualified and appropriate, to perform the functions of immigration officers in relation to the investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States under the direction and the supervision of the Secretary.  Such authorization shall be in addition to, rather than in place of, Federal performance of these duties.

(c)  To the extent permitted by law, the Secretary may structure each agreement under section 287(g) of the INA in the manner that provides the most effective model for enforcing Federal immigration laws and obtaining operational control over the border for that jurisdiction.

Sec. 11.  Parole, Asylum, and Removal.  It is the policy of the executive branch to end the abuse of parole and asylum provisions currently used to prevent the lawful removal of removable aliens.

(a)  The Secretary shall immediately take all appropriate action to ensure that the parole and asylum provisions of Federal immigration law are not illegally exploited to prevent the removal of otherwise removable aliens.

(b)  The Secretary shall take all appropriate action, including by promulgating any appropriate regulations, to ensure that asylum referrals and credible fear determinations pursuant to section 235(b)(1) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1125(b)(1)) and 8 CFR 208.30, and reasonable fear determinations pursuant to 8 CFR 208.31, are conducted in a manner consistent with the plain language of those provisions.

(c)  Pursuant to section 235(b)(1)(A)(iii)(I) of the INA, the Secretary shall take appropriate action to apply, in his sole and unreviewable discretion, the provisions of section 235(b)(1)(A)(i) and (ii) of the INA to the aliens designated under section 235(b)(1)(A)(iii)(II).

(d)  The Secretary shall take appropriate action to ensure that parole authority under section 212(d)(5) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1182(d)(5)) is exercised only on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the plain language of the statute, and in all circumstances only when an individual demonstrates urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit derived from such parole.

(e)  The Secretary shall take appropriate action to require that all Department of Homeland Security personnel are properly trained on the proper application of section 235 of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (8 U.S.C. 1232) and section 462(g)(2) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 279(g)(2)), to ensure that unaccompanied alien children are properly processed, receive appropriate care and placement while in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, and, when appropriate, are safely repatriated in accordance with law.

Sec. 12.  Authorization to Enter Federal Lands.  The Secretary, in conjunction with the Secretary of the Interior and any other heads of agencies as necessary, shall take all appropriate action to:

(a)  permit all officers and employees of the United States, as well as all State and local officers as authorized by the Secretary, to have access to all Federal lands as necessary and appropriate to implement this order; and

(b)  enable those officers and employees of the United States, as well as all State and local officers as authorized by the Secretary, to perform such actions on Federal lands as the Secretary deems necessary and appropriate to implement this order.

Sec. 13.  Priority Enforcement.  The Attorney General shall take all appropriate steps to establish prosecution guidelines and allocate appropriate resources to ensure that Federal prosecutors accord a high priority to prosecutions of offenses having a nexus to the southern border.

Sec. 14.  Government Transparency.  The Secretary shall, on a monthly basis and in a publicly available way, report statistical data on aliens apprehended at or near the southern border using a uniform method of reporting by all Department of Homeland Security components, in a format that is easily understandable by the public.

Sec. 15.  Reporting.  Except as otherwise provided in this order, the Secretary, within 90 days of the date of this order, and the Attorney General, within 180 days, shall each submit to the President a report on the progress of the directives contained in this order.

Sec. 16.  Hiring.  The Office of Personnel Management shall take appropriate action as may be necessary to facilitate hiring personnel to implement this order.

Sec. 17.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,
    January 25, 2017.