This is a really good discussion that discusses how and why tariffs were prioritized during early American history, and how that propelled our success during the first 150 years of the American republic. It discusses how the tariff could replace the federal income tax for many Americans. While I don’t necessarily agree with everything expressed in this video, it provides good background information:
Tariffs are a tax that American consumers pay. Trump’s tariffs are a significant tax increase on Americans. They increase the costs of American producers, who pass that cost along to consumers.
That subset of free societies (free markets) works. Trump gets more anti-free-market by the day.
This fellow discredits himself pretty badly by using Karl Marx for insight and support of idiotic notion that free markets are bad.
J. Sobran, I understand fully your belief that tariffs do harm. I think what this guy was saying is that, under a total free trade environment, the middle class and working class are marginalized economically to the point that they will be more prone to view Marxism as a solution.
I wish there were a clean choice on this…
It isn’t free trade that has created difficulty for the middle class and working class, because the US has never been anywhere near free trade. In fact the stranglehold of heavy-handed regulation rendered US manufacturing greatly disadvantaged, making tariffs thereby seem needed because the tremendous regulatory costs.
Are North Carolinian middle and working classes hurt because we have free trade with Virginia and S. Carolina?
No, but both Virginia and NC working classes are hurt when we have free trade with China and the rest of the world. Yes, the regulatory state is a huge problem also.
I somehow doubt that there is a dollar-for-dollar transfer of tariff dollar costs from the overseas producer to the consumer. I doubt the consumer eats up 100% of the tariff costs. But I have not seen data about that. For instance, during Trump’s first term, inflation overall was under reasonably good control.
“I doubt the consumer eats up 100% of the tariff costs.” You are right about that, Triad. The incidence of a tax is always complicated & often dispersed to a degree. How do you measure the fact that domestic competitors of the foreign producers being tariffed always raise their prices? Some of that “tax” goes in their pockets.
But always the people whose government holds a gun to their heads and says “you can’t buy goods from foreigners” are hurt by their loss of choice & freedom.
Having expressed all that opposition to tariffs, I confess to some sympathy for actions regarding rare earths and special situations like that, though the 1st action should be waivers of regulations that chased rare earth refinement to China in the 1st place. But instead, Trump has behaved as a war-like bully, starting trade wars with the likes of free-trading Switzerland. Trump doesn’t believe in the Golden Rule.
It’s a pretty complex topic, J. Sobran. It is difficult for the layman to know or understand the actual extent of tariffs and other trade barriers placed by foreign nations on products from the USA.
There is no question that Trump uses threats and intimidation against foreign countries, real and implicit, to attain the policy objectives he wants to achieve.