Why Is The Tariff Issue Controversial?
Setting aside that it could depend on the size of the tariff and the product involved, if you stick to one proposal at a time why is there such a debate about each one of them? If you put a 50% tariff on widgets from Babylon it would seem to result in obvious results. Yet there is this big debate, Are people disagreeing about what the results would be or are they disagreeing not about the results. but rather about whether we want those results?
Who "pays" for tariffs, David ?
I am not one of youse guys. I am not a fan of tariffs.
Currently only Trump is talking about adding massive tariffs (to pay off the deficit or something something)
Setting aside that it could depend on the size of the tariff and the product involved, if you stick to one proposal at a time why is there such a debate about each one of them? If you put a 50% tariff on widgets from Babylon it would seem to result in obvious results. Yet there is this big debate, A
I don’t think the bulk of tariff discourse happens between parties that agree on what the results of those tariffs will be, therefore people are disagreeing about results and not whether those results are desirable.
Example, when Trump says that we will collect “billions from China” he is most likely failing to understand that tariffs are paid by American companied who pass on the costs to the consumers. Or when Trump suggests blanket tariffs would be good for the economy, he obviously thinks that the results of autarky will be good while most economists would argue they are bad.
So no, not disagreeing on whether results are desirable but what the results will actually be.
FWIW I believe tariffs could be apply on national security interest when needed or when a country uses unfair means to steal market shares , like devaluing their currencies.
I'm not sure there is much controversy. Before Trump everyone said trade wars are easy to start, impossible to win and hard to stop with no real benefit. Everyone was correct but Trump.
I'm not sure there is much controversy. Before Trump everyone said trade wars are easy to start, impossible to win and hard to stop with no real benefit. Everyone was correct but Trump.
I believe the Atlantic leans left.
Conservatives historically have been against tariffs and bariers to free trade. They are shifting to a more isolationist low education white party.
How bout a refutation of the specific points in that article doctor? (I haven't read it)
I just looked up the author and he works at a conservative think tank and was an advisor on Project 2025.
I just looked up the author and he works at a conservative think tank and was an advisor on Project 2025.
So it should be easy to refute him point by point. I just read the article and have no idea if he is right. But he does go into technical detail and seems to back up his contentions in a reasonable manner. To dismiss him because he backs that Project 2025 should not be acceptable.
So it should be easy to refute him point by point. I just read the article and have no idea if he is right. But he does go into technical detail and seems to back up his contentions in a reasonable manner. To dismiss him because he backs that Project 2025 should not be acceptable.
Funny that he uses left talking points to make the case for tariffs .
I guess we are completing the circle .
So it should be easy to refute him point by point. I just read the article and have no idea if he is right. But he does go into technical detail and seems to back up his contentions in a reasonable manner. To dismiss him because he backs that Project 2025 should not be acceptable.
It is quite easy to find the sorts of rebuttals you are asking for. Here are some from:
Non-partisan think tanks:
[URL="https://www.intereconomics.eu/cont...[/URL]
Right-wing partisan think tanks:
https://www.cato.org/blog/americans-paid...
Traditional right wing magazines:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/09/t...
Mainstream media:
https://apnews.com/article/tariffs-trump...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20myx...
Mainstream media criticizing Biden for not rolling back most of Trump's tariffs:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...
We all just have to decide which perspective we find more persuasive.
I think the article is broadly correct. Particularly this
“The economic argument was always marginal” for free trade. “It was the foreign policy case which provided the real impetus for liberal trade policies in the United States in the postwar period.”
It's a politcal diaster imo. It's part of the cycle of increased nationalism and geopolitical risk. Others might like it
So it should be easy to refute him point by point. I just read the article and have no idea if he is right. But he does go into technical detail and seems to back up his contentions in a reasonable manner. To dismiss him because he backs that Project 2025 should not be acceptable.
The consensus on tariffs is easy to find. It would be beneficial for you to be able to research this yourself. Could help you learn logic and other stuff you try to understand.
I'm not curious about the general subject. I was only wondering whether the specific points he brought up had obvious flaws, The fact that he himself brought up the counter arguments to his, made me think that those flaws might be hard to find.
Conservatives historically have been against tariffs and bariers to free trade. They are shifting to a more isolationist low education white party.
In the British tradition, Conservatives historically favoured tariffs to protect the prices of landowners' agricultural goods, while Liberals favoured Free Trade to improve international relations and bring down the price of food for the masses. But, weirdly, abolition of the protectionist Corn Laws in 1846, to promote relief of the Irish famine, was achieved by Conservative Prime Minister Robert Peel, who also favoured a dole for those affected by the famine, whereas Lord John Russell's free-trade Liberals, who took office soon after, were for some time opposed to famine relief because they thought it went against 'the market'. (This was, of course, a slightly mad view, though it is true that no government had carried out a famine-relief programme before and it was quite a novel thing to do.)
A bit later, even arch-Conservative Disraeli argued that the genie could not be put back in the bottle and there could be no return to protectionism (resulting in a permanent agricultural recession in the UK), but just before the Great War the Conservatives under Arthur Balfour were arguing for a protectionist tariff system they called 'Imperial Preference', where Empire countries could trade fairly freely with the UK but Johnny Foreigner couldn't. And of course Continental countries like Germany were imposing tariffs at the time and Britain, under a free-trade Liberal government, wasn't retaliating in kind. In the December 1910 election campaign, Balfour suggested putting the matter to a referendum, but the Conservatives narrowly lost the election to the Liberal-Labour-Irish Parliamentary Party coalition, so that never happened. For fear of trade wars, protectionism has never returned to favour. Even the EU, from which Britain has now resiled, is fairly wide open to trade with China and other countries, though its trading standards put quite a serious block on imports from the US. Nobody in Europe wants to sign a free-trade deal with the US because it would mean decimating good-quality European agriculture in favour of the junk products of US 'agribusiness', which frankly nobody needs.
You have it backwards. The writer says the consensus is the Trump tariffs were bad and made some counter arguments. If you want counter counter arguments you have to understand the initial arguments and if the counter arguments made aense in thw sirst place.
Short
re the atlantic article, the author starts building his case by explaining that
Traditionally, an economist assessing a proposed market intervention begins by searching for a market failure, typically an “externality,” in need of correction. Pollution is the quintessential illustration
However, he later moves on to say
Contrast economists’ disdain for tariffs with their enthusiasm for carbon taxes. Taxing carbon would make many things more expensive for consumers, but economists embrace it as an elegant way to reduce emissions. Imposing a cost on a category of economic activity cannot be inherently foolish in one case (tariffs) and brilliant in another (carbon taxes). The question must be whether imposing that cost would be worth the benefits that it brings.
Carbon pollution (ignoring any debate on that issue) is a market failure requiring intervention. A business producing high cost, low quality products and going out of business due to competition is a market working perfectly.
His argument for tariffs seems to be based on fictional toasters which he admits would go up in price,
To be clear, tariffs do impose costs that are not captured as revenue. One of these is what economists call “deadweight loss,” created when resources are used less efficiently than they could be. Damage is done when a consumer who would have benefited from a $30 toaster chooses not to buy one for $33. A second cost appears as consumers switch to domestic options that are more expensive. The consumer who buys the $32 toaster made in America pays the extra $2, but the government collects no extra revenue.
but claims
Still, the share of the $32 purchase price that would once have gone to a Chinese factory and its workers now goes to an American firm and its workers instead. It pays American taxes and supports American families in American communities.
As an aside, initially or perhaps ever, no extra money will find its way to workers. The manufacturer will simply enjoy higher profits. They will in the long term consider investment in higher production, but this might simply be technological advances leading to less workers being employed.
The case for tariffs being advanced by the author, when taken to its logical conclusion, is that every product being sold in the US should be made in the US. That would clearly cause massive economic disruption and impose huge costs to consumers and stifle innovation (businesses could make high profits simply by producing inferior products). In medieval Europe the average peasant by and large only lived on what they could make or produce. The industrial revolution was fueled by comparative advantage leading to the absurd wealth of western nations. The heart of the American economy is the freedom of capital to invest where it believes it can make profit and the freedom of consumers to buy what they choose. An American only policy is the antithesis of that.
There are and always have been valid arguments for tariffs to counter dumping with a goal to crush competition but simple protectionist tariffs disadvantage consumers and promote inferior products.
as far as I think i understand, if you have an actual PLAN to create in house and goods or whatever it may be. then tariffs can be bad shorterm but good long term since it just starts up internally
