Comment by ragazzina
5 days ago
Can you make an example of a tariff from the last 100 years that definitely benefitted the US in a long-lasting way?
5 days ago
Can you make an example of a tariff from the last 100 years that definitely benefitted the US in a long-lasting way?
Auto tariffs have kept Detroit producing automobiles despite various other entrants, while still being low enough for foreign competition.
Auto tariffs are currently keeping far less expensive - yet much more advanced - Chinese EVs out of the US market, costing American consumers thousands of dollars on every car purchase.
While not allowing an entire industry and supply chain to die. One of the last heavily industrial and manufacturing industries left in the US at any decent sized scale.
You need such things for national security, so it's very likely "worth it" even all the way down to the American consumer level.
Look at the shipbuilding industry if you want to see what happens to that capacity without it. Due to the lack of commercial shipbuilding in the US, we can't even keep up with building for our Navy during peacetime. If a war ever were to attrit naval forces to any meaningful degree there would be zero hope of scaling up that supply chain in a relevant timeframe.
Arguments could of course be made if the auto manufacturing industry (and it's suppliers) are useful in an actual hot war, but I think without them we'd be in even heavier dire straights in that regard.
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_Just about_. After significant government bailouts.
Ultimately, this sort of protectionism tends to be expensive, and yield an inferior product.
But may still be worth it to protect a skilled domestic industry.
I think the same effects can be achieved using subsidies, and I do accept such interventions can have legitimate justifications.
At significant loss to the consumer. Sure a tariff can benefit a subset of people, by costing others even more.
We could also do this without tariffs by simply taking money from some group and handing it to another.
Someone mentioned a week or two ago on HN that the point of the auto tariffs was national security (maintaining the industry/expertise/etc. in the US, I assume), not economic.
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Receiving money for free is different than money earned for work (even if subsidised).
It creates different incentives for the receiver.
How do you feel about allowing the import of goods from nations using slavery to create those goods? Would you be okay with a foreign nation undercutting domestic production as a strategy to destroy your industry to control a market?
That's aside from my position that most taxes should be at a point of trade/exchange.
The question was for a specific example, not some moral vague strawman.
The question is a good one, right to the heart of the claim. Without specific examples, especially ones that are not post selected (i.e., pick all tariffs at a point in time and see of that was beneficial), it is silly to claim tariffs are useful when there is ample evidence of when they cause significant harm to the economy.
So, have a case for a timepoint where the set of tariffs ended up being demonstrably beneficial for an economy?
You have to see there's a hefty dose of hypocrisy in this, right? American might has been used, quite extensively, to impose unfavorable conditions to local companies in their own soil in favor of American companies. Multiple American multi national corporations have used exploitative labor conditions in underdeveloped countries to prop up their own margins. The American government has used multiple coercive tools to de-industrialize many nations and has, in the 21st century, an explicitly paternalistic attitude towards the Western Hemisphere with literal stealing of their resources.
I understand and even respect when someone says "I'm American so I wish to maintain the status quo where the US can undercut other nations but they can't undercut us". But if there's some rose tinted view of how the US is actually the morally aggrieved one, I just can't bear it.
You’re responding to a different question than what was asked.
The question wasn’t about American hypocrisy, it was can you imagine a situation where tariffs are potentially good.
You can just ban imports from people who use sweatshops, or hash that out in trade agreements.
Because Trump is so fixated on tariffs, it's centered tariffs in too many conversations on these trade topics. People have developed a kind of tunnel vision here.
There are other kinds of policy levers besides tariffs for securing supply chains, promoting domestic manufacturers, or cutting out businesses that rely on slave labor from international trade. Most of them are cheaper and more effective than tariffs.
Softwood lumbar from Canada.
US stumpage fees are set by the market, while Canada sets a below market fee.
Tariff adjusts cost of softwood lumbar from Canada to adjust for this.
Where is my prize?
There's a tarriff on sugar that means we have to use HFCS in processed foods and beverages. Oh wait...