This week on CounterSpin: Coverage of Donald Trump’s trade war on China has led to some odd writing, as when the Washington Post reported, “Dozens of US companies have complained that Trump’s earlier steel and aluminum tariffs drove up their costs and hurt more US workers than they helped. But Trump does not see it that way.” Or the New York Times says, “The president shows no signs of backing away from his stance that tariffs have helped the United States.” It’s true that the administration is both internally divided and intentionally ambiguous on trade policy and its impacts. But what does that mean for reporters’ responsibility? Surely they can’t just throw up their hands? We’ll seek some clarity on tariffs and trade with economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Also on the show: And then there were three? If the Republican-led FCC has its way, a horizontal merger between T-Mobile and Sprint will reduce to three the number of national wireless carriers. The Justice Department has concluded that you need at least four players to have anything like effective competition in an industry. But Ajit Pai says nah. We’ll talk with Leo Fitzpatrick, policy counsel and C. Edwin Baker fellow at the group Free Press, about what the merger could mean for the public interest that’s of so little interest to the FCC.
