Tariffs server our country well for the first 180 years. And since we’ve lowered them we’ve seen industry after industry disappear.
It’s not simply low value jobs that went overseas. It’s High tech jobs. And design jobs and marketing jobs follwed. And with it goes the innovation. If we want to lead in Robotics, we have to have the processes to automate.
We don’t need barriers to US goods to come down. We need barriers to the US market to go up.
Our founding fathers viewed the Tariffs as a tax on foreigners wanting to sell into our markets.
The initial tariff was a Revenue tariff designed to fund the government at a time when the nation had no money supply. Protection of war industries was also a goal.
The US is demonstrating the “Export Cycle” wherein a country creates a new industry and remains the sole source for it for a period of time. Then economics and the cost of labor dictate that the production of the good seeks the lowest cost producer. First American industry moves production offshore. Then the technique for that production becomes widespread and new industries arise in the foreign country to produce it.
This is inevitable and starts all over again with new commodities.
We lead the world in innovation and one of the reasons is there is no protection of obsolescent industries by a tariff. With a level playing field we can compete with anyone. Escaping competition leads to stagnation then regression.
This does not even address the massive growth of federal power and the fact that Congress sets the tariff rates. Open the floodgates for even more corruption than there already is as industries lobby for favorable treatment by the tariff.