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this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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As always, Trump talks about tarffs as if it's a punishment he threatens to impose on other nations, when in reality, tariffs are first and foremost a punishment on the American people.
Exporting countries will not foot the bill. American importers will, and they'll pass the extra cost on to the American consumers.
Tariffs may ultimately spur the development of domestic manufacturing of whatever imported goods will be taxed. That's the entire point of tariffs after all. But it's far from certain and it will take years in the best of cases - years during which Americans will become poorer and will have a harder time making ends meet.
That's what Trump is really proposing. That's what the Americans voted for.
I'm with you, but I can see the other side of this.
The US experienced shocking shortages during the global pandemic.
I'm not personally a huge fan of tariffs as the way to keep manufacturing local, but I think it's a goal worth pursuing.
And I value of impact of global trade toward peace, and I'm increasingly inclined to believe it's critical for our survival as a race.
But I'm sympathetic to having some provision for ensuring local production of basic necessities. It's foolish to always assume that someone will be willing and able to ship what we need halfway across the globe.
I'm not sure that tariffs are an acceptable answer, but I am sure that we need to stop assuming there will always be another impoverished nation excited to be exploited to produce things for us cheap.
It's wise to have some provision for locally producing critical things.
What will get manufactured locally will be the things where there's enough margin in it. Nothing to do with how vital or desirable it might be to make locally.
Except corn, which is heavily subsidized in the US.
(I suspect the primary motive is to provide an alternative fuel for the war machine, sadly. But corn is also useable as local transport fuel and even food, which is nice.)
I'm in favor of additional subsidies to support local manufacturing of critical products, to protect the local population against the whims of the global market.
I'm not a huge fan of tariffs, but in theory tariffs can get the same job done. And I'm willing to concede that a balance between subsidies and tariffs might be the sweet spot for practicality, or might be a necessary a step on the journey to pragmatic people centric policies.
More to your point, I think we agree on that.
My point is that government is for when the open market fails.
Providing margin against known common disasters and shortages is a great use of government power to distort a market.
Tariffs and subsidies can close the gap to provide incentive to have local production of things like clean water, food, power, medical supplies, and computer chips.
In my ideal case, each government would provide consistent local demand, and ship the excess product as goodwill donations to neighbors in need.
We actually see some of that now, but 2020 revealed a number of substantial gaps.