2026’s Counter-Tweet of the Year?

There were seven contestants for the 2025 Counter-Tweet of the Year (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

Today, let’s look at our first entry for 2026.

It involves Peter Navarro, who was an “environmental activist” Democrat who ran for office several times in the 1990s on a “no-growth platform” in California.

He’s still against growth today, but he now works for Donald Trump and is a big supporter of the President’s protectionism.

Navarro tweeted triumphantly on January 29 that American steel production in 2025 exceeded Japanese steel production for the first time since 1999.

This sounds like a potentially significant development. I’m sure many people wondered if this meant Trump’s steel tariffs were having a big effect (other than all the lost jobs in the steel-using sector).

Lo and behold, it turns out that America overtook Japan in steel production in large part because Japanese output dropped.

Which motivated Eric Boehm to send out a counter-tweet using the inquisitive-swan meme.

I’ll close by addressing the only persuasive part of Narvarro’s argument. In the video he tweeted, he asserted that other nations subsidized steel exports.

This kind of distortion is contrary to free trade and is precisely why the World Trade Organization should have been strengthened rather than emasculated.

Sadly, that no longer seems to be an option, so the next-best choice should be anti-subsidy/free-trade pacts, especially among western nations.

P.S. If you like the inquisitive-swan meme, here’s another example.

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