Taxpayers are already paying far more than is necessary for the $1 trillion plus in means test poverty programs annually. Well, both current and future tax payers since we now borrow about forty cents of every dollar the government spends.
You're just kidding yourself that there are any savings from imports made with cheap labor. It's being paid for a few times over in all those poverty programs for the 20% of working age Americans, who don't work, and who receive benefits from the poverty programs.
All those factors are connected, but most don't want to make the connections. How strange that, in the past forty or so years, the US has accumulated the massive debt while lowering or eliminating tariffs, exporting factories and jobs to cheap labor nations, and adding more and more poverty programs for the now 20% of adults who depend on them and mostly have no jobs.
Of course, all the people on those programs are not included in the unemployment rate. Being on welfare is considered employment, I suppose.
I absolutely agree that the issues are connected and there are ramifications to any approach. I just tend to favor free market principles.
If you're going to require businesses to pay more than necessary to produce a product so people can earn a living wage why not just increase the minimum wage or provide direct subsidies to workers?
It would be more transparent and cause less market distortion than tariffs or other trade barriers.