Tariffs are a penalty, just as taxes are.
Tariffs help migrate the consumer from a decision to buy Chinese to a decision to buy American.
Tariffs can indeed create massive numbers of jobs. This country was built, through all its formidable years, on a federal tariff that funded as much as 95% of the entire federal budget.
Get your facts straight, SOB.
“This country was built, through all its formidable years, on a federal tariff that funded as much as 95% of the entire federal budget.”
Few people know that the government was funded that way. Very few, thanks!
The following provides historical perspective.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history
My facts are completely straight.
Our first tariff was justifiable for the reasons discussed above. We had no choice if we wanted a government or to correct the distortions of colonialism.
Free Trade was not a choice then since no government practiced it. Our economy had NO free trade as part of colonialism. It was an ideal not an actual state of affairs.
Then is not now and the same logic does not work. If it ever did.
Tariffs lose more jobs than they create, slow the creation of wealth and gets the government too involved in economic decisions.
They were the reasons that the early period saw widespread bribery and corruption in Congress as lobbyists jockeyed for position on the protection list.
Oh, btw our country was not “built” on a tariff it was a small part of our emergence as a super power. Initially the main factor was LAND and, in the South, slavery. Then we imported large numbers of laborers from Europe to provide a labor force. Then there was the Scientific Revolution which produced tremendous growth in productivity.
To the extent that tariffs supported unprofitable concerns they slower our growth.
Bingo, tariffs fund Govt.
Next, cut income taxes. Cut property taxes.