The patriarch of GOP conservatism spoke at the gala convened in his honor by the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank he founded:
“With so much change, and chaos, and conflict, too many people and organizations are abandoning these principles and turning to power to solve problems... But we know from history, this just makes them worse.
“People have forgotten that when principles are lost, so are freedom and progress.”
Charles Koch has long been a foe of protectionism and an evangelist for free markets, competitive advantage, and mutual benefit. Trump and his economic team are engaging in some of the riskiest and costliest brinksmanship over global trade in a generation. And when the head of the second-largest private company in the United States speaks, there’s an oracle-like aura that demands parsing...
“You can see why we’re in the mess we are today,”
Koch said.
The “mess” was as explicit as he was willing to get in regard to a pursuit of power at all costs... Trump marked his 100th day in office this week with a report... that showed the economy shrunk in his first quarter. His trade war has shifted buying patterns, shaken U.S. consumer confidence, and rattled the stock market. Consumers are already starting to notice costs rising from Trump’s tariff strategy, which has been all over the map: adding some here, delaying them there, canceling them here, upping them there...
Cato president and CEO Peter Goettler said explicitly what Koch merely waved at, the feistiness is not fading.
“We will always oppose when a policy is moving in a direction that contradicts these principles... When [Trump] disappears people without due process, or enacts extra-legal tariffs that threaten business and prosperity around the world, or targets individual law firms for retribution and calls into great danger to the rule of law, we’ll stick to our principles, speak out, push back, and oppose it.”
