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Sean Kullman
Even-Steven: the Reciprocity Mindset
When a childhood friend of mine and I started talking about reciprocal tariffs, he—like most of us—was unaware of the way foreign countries levied taxes against U.S. exports and the way the U.S. levied taxes against foreign exports. Was the U.S. being taxed for its goods at higher rates? Were tariffs hurting American worker, consumers, and other U.S. interests?
Tariffs are a complicated topic with some economists arguing that tariffs allow a country to advance a broad range of interests, such as the development of industries, employment, and national security. Others argue that tariffs drive up the cost of goods and create other types of imbalances. There are certainly arguments to be had on both sides, but there is something about the phrase reciprocal tariffs that seems just and right to the American public.
It’s all about being even-steven, a phrase I certainly used as a child that meant a settling of accounts—that two parties agreed to treat each other exactly equal. Trump is arguing that the American people are not being treated fairly and the reason the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is being positively received by the American people. It’s not that Americans are unwilling to help those in need; it is another thing—however—to take advantage of their kindness and generosity, especially when many are struggling.
Much of Trump’s rhetoric is about the fleecing of the American people or a sense that Americans are being treated unfairly. There certainly is a degree of truth in that rhetoric, especially for America’s boys and young men and a reason many of them—and married women, mothers of boys, and men of all races—moved toward Trump and his eclectic cabinet. Billions in wasteful spending are being exposed at a time when the nation’s boys and men are facing serious educational and physical & mental health concerns (see the Global Initiative for Boys and Men’s state reports).
A report I’m conducting on the status of boys and men in Tennessee reveals what I’m seeing across the country: all boys of all races are dying at higher rates than their female counterparts and across racial lines when it comes to suicide, overdose, and alcohol deaths. President Trump seems very aware of the overdose trend, and part of President Trump’s tariff-leveraging aims to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S. and place a greater demand on other countries to participate in it. Although Trump is aware of the overdose crisis, I’m not so sure he is completely aware of the disproportionate consequence of boys and men across all deaths-of-despair.
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While Trump has pushed for equality in women’s sports and private spaces and recognizes sex differences in an obvious way, he also needs to see the hidden side of sex differences (brain-sex difference) in outcomes that have been ignored. For decades, our local, state, and national agencies have set up all sorts of offices that advance the causes of girls and women while ignoring the outcomes of boys and men, and this lack of reciprocity is a driving force for the National Coalition for Men and its lawsuit against the state of California.
Harry Crouch, President of NCFM, says “our nation lacks a sense of fairness when it comes to helping our boys and men. There is no reciprocity for them.”
His words settle on the sense of fairness and the reason many like him are frustrated with the way America’s boys and men are treated unfairly.
Unfair treatment is not speculation but something well defined in Boys, A Rescue Plan, The Boy Crisis, The War Against Boys, The Wonder of Boys, and a handful of other books that should be regular reading material in high schools and colleges across the country as well as by every policymaker at the local, state, and federal level—and most importantly, by parents.
Reciprocity is about the dealing of affairs in a way that benefits parties engaged in a common good but who also have personal interests. Trump is frustrating those who wish to practice an unfairness, and he is calling them to account. What is getting under the skin of those engaged in the special-interest industrial complex is the inability to leverage disadvantage and ignore the consequences of those injured by those practices. For boys and men, one can expect to see an increase in the number of hostile articles about male nature and those who symbolically represent it—something I discussed in an article two weeks ago. The purpose of this, of course, is to ignore the plight of our nation’s sons and bait and switch it with an alternative argument that encourages a willful ignorance.
A reciprocity mindset is taking hold in the American ethos, and there are those who will do whatever they can to undermine it. The abuses of power have existed for decades and have been promulgated by an academia, media, and government that aim to bend and break the spirit of the American male and embrace a type of eternal revenge on male nature for perceived past transgressions whenever people call for even-stevens.
As my friend at the beginning of this article told me, “I never imagined I would vote for Trump. But I didn’t really vote for him as much as I voted for the other people he was bringing into his administration. I thought they offered new perspectives and included my liberal views that all people and our nation deserve fair treatment and transparency. I just want to know what is going on and I now feel like more of our government is becoming transparent and still know there is a long way to go.”
He, like so many of us, are looking for harmony. Reciprocal tariffs are about something so much bigger than tariffs. They are about a new mindset in the American ethos—a demand for fairness.
