(Daily Signal)—Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’d like to review, very quickly, some challenges ahead for the MAGA movement in general and President Donald Trump in particular.
He’s had a wonderful June. He’s defied all experts on the economy. His trade policies and tariffs did not collapse the economy. We do not have inflation or unemployment. He’s been very successful on the border—I shouldn’t say very successful, astoundingly successful. Not a single entry, so far, illegally into the United States across the southern border.
And we’ve seen that we didn’t have a wider war in Iran. We got most of its nuclear enrichment programs. There wasn’t 30,000 people killed, etc.
So, Donald Trump has had probably the best June of any modern president. But you have to be very careful because there’s going to be some challenges ahead.
One of them is, of course, if Iran decides that we wanted a ceasefire and they are going to start visibly engaging in enrichment or if they stupidly try to use one of their depleted terrorist surrogates—Hezbollah, Hamas, or terrorist cells in the United States—to attack us, they’re going to have to be retaliated against.
So, Donald Trump will have to use force again to ensure that we do have a deterrence. And that, of course, will inflame the MAGA base. But that’s something that we should look forward to because it’s going to be inevitable that you have to use force to make sure the ceasefire extends and Iran gets the message.
Another thing is the border. We don’t have any illegal immigration. And we have already deported—self-deported—1 million people on their own. They chose to self-deport. And then we, of course, we’ve deported 200,000 or 300,000. But as we whittle down the 12 million who came under President Joe Biden, we’re going to bump up against the other 20 million, and some of whom have been here 20 years.
Remember, we had 20 million illegal aliens before Joe Biden led in 12 million. We have 55 million people, of all statuses, that were not born in the United States—16% of the resident population. The highest in our history, both in actual numbers and in percentages.
But of that 20 million that were here before Biden took office, there are going to be several million—3, 4, 5 million—and these are going to be people who are fully engaged in the labor force. They’ve been here five, 10, 15 years. They have not committed a crime. And they’re not on public assistance. Is that the majority? No. But there’s going to be a core group of pretty hardworking people that are very lawful, very pro-American. Do we want to give them citizenship? No. We want to give them the opportunity to pay a small fine and apply for a green card.
In 1986, most people who got that option, under President Ronald Reagan’s Simpson-Mazzoli—a congressional bill—they chose just to get a green card. Only a third applied for citizenship. But that’s something we need to be flexible on as it comes up.
There’s going to be another final challenge for MAGA, and that is—I was talking to a group of Europeans this week at the Hoover Institution. And some of their concerns—it was very funny. They all quietly admitted that their governments have had asymmetrical tariffs. And they all knew that was unfair. And they all knew they got caught on it. And they all knew they had to do something to ensure their access to the American markets.
But here’s what they said: “Well, what if we went down to completely symmetrical tariffs? What if we even proposed to you that there was zero tariffs? You would take it, wouldn’t you?” And I think we would.
But Donald Trump will have to decide whether he would or not because he would probably think: Well, nobody said that tariffs would make that much revenue. And I don’t think they still will make more than a trillion dollars over a decade. But we’ve had three record months of tariff revenue. And Donald Trump seems to envision that, contrary to all popular opinion, he’s proved them wrong. Proved me wrong. He got a lot of revenue from tariffs.
I don’t know if that’ll be sustained. But he may not want to do that. He may say, “Well, you had asymmetrical tariffs for years, so we’re going to do it as long as you did.” I think that would be a mistake. But he will have to decide that.
Bottom line: Donald Trump’s going to have to decide, when countries come to him and say, “We’ll run a deficit with you, we will have symmetrical tariffs,” or, “We’ll have no tariffs,” is he going to take that or not? If Iran violates the ceasefire—and to what degree that would be true I don’t know, but if we see trucks going into these enrichment sites or we find evidence of a new one, he’s going to have to act and deal with a fallout.
And then, of course, on the border, it’s not going to be a problem of new illegal aliens. It’s not going to be a problem of the 12 million that Joe Biden let in. But there will be some people that he’ll have to decide, and I think it would be wise for them to have to pay a fine, get a green card, continue working, stay off social services, stay crime-free, and become a valuable green card holder.
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