Patrick Barron on U.S. competitiveness and need to return to the gold standard

As long as America can print fiat money to pay for imports it will print fiat money.  But under the discipline of the gold standard, Americans will have to produce good quality products at world market prices in order to earn the foreign exchange (gold) needed to settle international trade.  It’s the only way. Erecting tariffs, as desired by President Trump, solves nothing and merely exacerbates the situation.  America must learn to compete in the world on equal terms; i.e., it cannot simply print fiat dollars.  It must produce goods that foreigners wish to buy at prices that foreigners are willing to pay.  Becoming an autarkic nation, a la North Korea, will condemn Americans to poverty.  America needs to become an honest, commercially oriented nation.  If not, the world will pass it by just as has happened to other great nations in the past. 

~ Patrick Barron, "David Hume’s Insight Explains America’s Economic Decline," Going Postal, April 16, 2025