A tariff that imposed zero costs would not function as a tariff to begin with.
Re-read your statement, it sounds like you are starting to agree with me. I never said there had to be a single tariff rate.
Re-read my previous statement. I am simply noting the fact that a tariff's protective capacity does not derive from a generic rate scale where high rates are always protective and low rates are not. Rather, a tariff's protective capacity is directly related to the difference between prices on the two goods.
The cost of goods is determined by supply and demand.
Not when tariffs are at play. They artificially push prices to higher levels that would not exist under free trade conditions by imposing a legal barrier.
What you should be arguing is that it would cut profits.
No. Hiking prices is correct.
Do you think it is a bad thing that most Japanese cars sold here are now made here?
Only if it is inefficient. If it is efficient and gives us some form of price optimality it is fine.
Or would you rather have those Americans give up their jobs
If that labor is inefficient and if the benefits to Americans from lower prices outweighed the costs to Americans from the loss of those jobs then yes. I would rather give them up because that is a net gain for our country's economy.
so that you could continue building Mercado's fantasy land?
Mercado fantasy land?
What? Sounds like you are mixing metaphors.
Not at all. A sovereign nation has the right to set its own trade policy and within the realm of that right is the choice of free trade that we have chosen.
The constitution give the congress authority to collect tariffs.
That it does, and as the founding fathers made very clear, those tariffs were intended to be for the government's revenue purposes - not for providing redistributive protectionist handouts to lazy industries.
Are you not free to buy cigarettes and gasoline because they are taxed, heavily I might add?
I am free to consume those items SO LONG AS I yield to the taxes imposed upon them, but no - that freedom is not a full one. It is wholly conditional and is enforced upon us by a state that imposes those conditions without our consent and exercises its withholding power if we choose not to abide by its unilaterally imposed conditions.
By your logic, you should have the freedom to not pay income tax.
Technically speaking, yes.
And, don't forget, you need the WTO to build your free-trade theme park
No I don't. I simply need Congress to remove the existing trade barriers and abstain from imposing new ones.
If that labor is inefficient and if the benefits to Americans from lower prices outweighed the costs to Americans from the loss of those jobs then yes. I would rather give them up because that is a net gain for our country's economy.
This is the heart of the issue. Show us this net gain for real, not in theory, and don't forget to factor EVERYTHING in.
Not at all. A sovereign nation has the right to set its own trade policy and within the realm of that right is the choice of free trade that we have chosen.
According to that, we have never had free trade in the history of this nation. Is something magic going to happen when we hit 0 tariffs? What about all the other trade barriers? Tariffs kill all? Let's say you get your way and it is a bigger failure than it already is... would you ever admit it, or would you just move the goal posts?