Alternative foreign policies, such as sanctions, wars, and the like also impose significant costs. When faced with a bad actor, a government should choose the least-bad countermeasure.
Disagree politely. We must protect our own. We rose on Tariffs from Clay, Lincoln through FDR. We have been falling since Free Trade. Free trade of course was always against Japan.Inc and China Inc and all the rest.
No private corporation can or should have to compete with nations.
A lot of people that argue against these don't understand the history of this country properly of the place that tariffs have in it. At one time, we had no taxes at all, but we did have tariffs, and that was the entire reason we didn't have taxes, then one day the tariffs got for the most part lifted, and then the Government at the time clicked to the fact that it needed more money then what it had, and it started taxing the people, rather then going back to the tariffs.
And of course, over time, the more and more the Government got bloated, the more and more it began to tax the people. Now we have a tax on just about everything. You get taxed on your paycheck, then after that you get taxed to death on every single dollar you spend, and I can go further from there.
I like the idea of what Vivek and Elon are about to do, and think it will shave a heck of a lot of of what the people of this country are going to have to spend in taxes each year, and will save us one heck of a lot of $$ very quickly, as well as when Trump starts to deregulate things again, like when he did in his first term, which caused business to thrive. Regulations tend to do nothing good, and just strangle business, and between that, and tariffs, in the right place and the right time, we will soon see lower taxes.
Yeah, they have been doing that for a while now, painfully aware, and think Kennedy knows about this, and most like as not will be fighting this tooth and nail. They have been putting this in pork for a bit, and are now trying to put it in beef. Notice now all of a sudden everything suddenly has 'listeria'?
Not trying to say that people have not been sick, but certainly all of these recalls all of a sudden must have something behind them, as it seems to me that we have a good checks system in place, and we never had this issue before, but suddenly...seems like sabotage to me.
And when it comes to the chickens and the Turkeys, if they would stop using the same overrated PCR tests that they used on people to try and 'prove' COVID then we would not have to kill all of the egg laying birds, now, would we? Just another scamdemic, to kill off more of our food supply.
Private corporations can clean the clocks of socialized nations, and they do. We buy "cheap crap" from China because their people are so poor that they'll work for less, not because they're winning a competition. They are "doing the jobs Americans won't do" from outside our borders, which is much better than doing it inside our borders where they can vote, undermine the culture, and claim welfare.
Our policy failures are these:
1. A bunch of other things are attached to "free trade" policies, such as "one world government" notions. These attachments don't need to exist. We should distinguish "globalization" - international trade - from "globalism", which is WEF politics.
2. Inspired by globalist faith, we are pricing the risk of supply-chain dependence poorly. Poor pricing decisions as a result of left-wing dogmas are not new; think about all of the money spent on useless "green tech".
Proper free trade is simply property rights - the right to do as you please with your own property (including trading) without the government putting its finger on the scale. America became great by means of it, and we can again. But we need to stop attaching woke ideology to it, and we need to clean up Democrats' messes, whether they be our relationship with Mexico or our relationship with China.
The Australian Sky network featured Troodo on their "Lefties Losing It" segment, as the Neo-Marxist Ken Doll.
They showed a clip of 53 yr. old Troodo dancing away last Friday night at the Toronto Taylor Swift concert, while a few hours away in Montreal, the downtown core was engulfed in violent riots by the Pro-Hamas thugs.
Troodo seemed entirely unconcerned....as he tried to get the surrounding teenyboppers to take his friendship bracelets. He was his usual delusional self, with his country in crisis. Did I mention that Troodo's own parliamentary seat is in Montreal?
There will be an even more brutal impact on what remains of Canada if we cannot oust JT and the Liberals, ASAP.
Most decent Canadians would be willing to sacrifice to the tariffs to get rid of the Fentanyl flow and porous border likely arranged by JT and his Communist Chinese buddies.
I know some good ones. Although I have to agree that we also have too many herd creatures. Someone needs to take them in hand and lead them, because they seem unable to lead themselves.
Well, most of my ancestors started out in Canada as the earliest British/Europeans here, then as United Empire Loyalists. We gave this country everything we had. Though by 2024 I am on the verge of telling my kids to leave for the US or Australia.
We have to come to terms with a basic and unalterable economic reality: there is no such thing as "free trade" between nations.
It does not happen. In the modern world, it cannot happen. So long as government stands in the middle -- and trade agreements are merely a guarantee that government will never not be in the middle -- free and unfettered trade cannot happen.
Accordingly, tariffs are an inevitable means of equalizing the distortions to markets caused by incessant government meddling.
Tariffs are made necessary because the moment one market actor anywhere gains a measure of economic and political power, that actor will distort the market. Not "may", not "could", but WILL. Every time.
Free trade is a utopian fantasy. The best we can achieve is "fair" trade, which is subjective and is fundamentally whatever is the most advantageous trade relationship any one nation can secure for itself.
I completely agree Peter! Just like there is no such thing as the “free market”. I would be in favor of a global voluntary exchange system with no regulation, but alas, that is not the way that descendants of chimpanzees work. Furthermore the subsidization of foreign goods and currency manipulation (could be solved by dissolving subsidies and gold as a medium of exchange) means that the US cannot afford to produce its own goods which further moves the productive class from the equities class away from one another.
As has been apocryphally attributed to Einstein, “In theory, theory and reality are the same. In reality, theory and reality are different.”
There is no argument to be made against the premise that whenever markets are allowed to function in a fully free and unfettered fashion—which also means no market power and rent-seeking behavior from any of the participants—that the general levels of market activity, supply, demand, and overall prosperity will establish equilibrium at a higher level than in any other scenario.
Unfortunately, the conditions necessary for that free and unfettered market rarely exist in the real world, and when they do exist the corrupt practices of any one market participant is sufficient to alter the outcome. While this results in suboptimal outcomes for the market as a whole, for the participants with market power, it results in an optimal outcome.
Thus the marketplace not only proves Adam Smith correct about the invisible hand, but also proves Lord Acton correct about the consequences of power.
And it is in that corrupted marketplace that we must transact daily business.
And the tariffs that sit on the books for decades? We have corn syrup poisoning us because of sugar tariffs that benefit a few sugar companies in the states. Once companies are protected, they stop improving and raise their prices since their competitors are more expensive. Then they bribe “lobby” to keep the tariffs and we keep paying the price.
No, tariffs are never a good choice. Let's go the extreme. What if China would be willing to send their material (cars, coal, oil, steel, whatever), would you recommend that we would not accept these products? You would refuse to receive good products at no cost? Of course this is never going to happen, but it shows just how stupid tariffs are. It is a lose-lose situation. The people of the importing country have to pay a higher price while the exporter gains less profit. Who is the winner? Nobody. It is just another tax on the people of both countries and leads to distortions in the market place.
Disagree, free trade has led to the hollowing out of the middle class. If we don’t get our trade policy in order we will continue to see the separation between the equity and productive classes. A lake of trade balance will lead to more poverty misery and unaffordability in the US
I will say this, we know that NAFTA in the 90s and the opening of trade with China in the late 70s and 80s directly led to the economic conditions which produced the political wave that Trump could surf to the presidency. The hollowing out of the Rust Belt and the diminishing purchasing power of the median American were directly caused by the outsourcing of production overseas. We also have much lower quality goods, from clothing, to furniture, to luggage and building materials.
I know it is a popular opinion at think tanks that Tariffs reduce consumption (I think this is true), but the lack of tariffs means that there are only viable economic opportunities for 25% of Americans. The truth is we have put our economy in a position where it is too expensive to produce many items for export because our fixed costs of regulation, financing and personnel are so high that our firms cannot compete. See: farming. We cannot produce corn and soy at the prices required for international trade which is why the USDA crop insurance program pays out every year (and taxpayers pay most of the insurance premiums). This is why we produce cars in Mexico.
To pretend that free trade has been a boon for all Americans is incorrect. Free trade is fantastic for the stock market, it is fantastic for multinationals who want to employ slaves (see Apple, Nike et al). Free trade is terrible for any person who works in resource extraction in the US - basically a commodity producer - because of course it will be cheaper to produce commodities in Brazil, China, Africa: they have little to no environmental or employment regulations. Mines, farms, timberland, oil are all tough businesses in the US because increasingly the technology and finance that has given US firms a competitive advantage over others is available throughout the world. (A 32 row combine for corn costs 1/10th in China of what it does in the US).
If you have different regulatory and capital environments, allowing free trade will ensure that those countries with the lowest regulations will be the producers, meaning our commodities will be produced in the maximally irresponsible way. This is the status quo. It would be better if we extracted lumber from American forests responsibly. It would be better if we grew American food responsibly. It would be better if we mined gold in Nevada responsibly vs the Congo with civil war.
I agree with your assessment that Tariffs are a useful threat for any US president, but I reject the evidence that free trade has improved the living standard of Americans, because it most definitely has not. In fact, free trade is precisely why we have a lowering workforce participation rate and why we have lost all sorts of Mom and Pop businesses over the last 50 years. Free trade and globalization are synonyms, and both are the friend of the stock trader and the enemy of the farmer.
Tariffs are foreign policy, not economic policy.
Alternative foreign policies, such as sanctions, wars, and the like also impose significant costs. When faced with a bad actor, a government should choose the least-bad countermeasure.
Disagree politely. We must protect our own. We rose on Tariffs from Clay, Lincoln through FDR. We have been falling since Free Trade. Free trade of course was always against Japan.Inc and China Inc and all the rest.
No private corporation can or should have to compete with nations.
A lot of people that argue against these don't understand the history of this country properly of the place that tariffs have in it. At one time, we had no taxes at all, but we did have tariffs, and that was the entire reason we didn't have taxes, then one day the tariffs got for the most part lifted, and then the Government at the time clicked to the fact that it needed more money then what it had, and it started taxing the people, rather then going back to the tariffs.
And of course, over time, the more and more the Government got bloated, the more and more it began to tax the people. Now we have a tax on just about everything. You get taxed on your paycheck, then after that you get taxed to death on every single dollar you spend, and I can go further from there.
I like the idea of what Vivek and Elon are about to do, and think it will shave a heck of a lot of of what the people of this country are going to have to spend in taxes each year, and will save us one heck of a lot of $$ very quickly, as well as when Trump starts to deregulate things again, like when he did in his first term, which caused business to thrive. Regulations tend to do nothing good, and just strangle business, and between that, and tariffs, in the right place and the right time, we will soon see lower taxes.
Yeah, they have been doing that for a while now, painfully aware, and think Kennedy knows about this, and most like as not will be fighting this tooth and nail. They have been putting this in pork for a bit, and are now trying to put it in beef. Notice now all of a sudden everything suddenly has 'listeria'?
Not trying to say that people have not been sick, but certainly all of these recalls all of a sudden must have something behind them, as it seems to me that we have a good checks system in place, and we never had this issue before, but suddenly...seems like sabotage to me.
And when it comes to the chickens and the Turkeys, if they would stop using the same overrated PCR tests that they used on people to try and 'prove' COVID then we would not have to kill all of the egg laying birds, now, would we? Just another scamdemic, to kill off more of our food supply.
Private corporations can clean the clocks of socialized nations, and they do. We buy "cheap crap" from China because their people are so poor that they'll work for less, not because they're winning a competition. They are "doing the jobs Americans won't do" from outside our borders, which is much better than doing it inside our borders where they can vote, undermine the culture, and claim welfare.
Our policy failures are these:
1. A bunch of other things are attached to "free trade" policies, such as "one world government" notions. These attachments don't need to exist. We should distinguish "globalization" - international trade - from "globalism", which is WEF politics.
2. Inspired by globalist faith, we are pricing the risk of supply-chain dependence poorly. Poor pricing decisions as a result of left-wing dogmas are not new; think about all of the money spent on useless "green tech".
Proper free trade is simply property rights - the right to do as you please with your own property (including trading) without the government putting its finger on the scale. America became great by means of it, and we can again. But we need to stop attaching woke ideology to it, and we need to clean up Democrats' messes, whether they be our relationship with Mexico or our relationship with China.
No. Tariffs and we protect our own. I don’t think the nation is property, nor a parcel of property.
Nor are people property.
This Free Trade ideology gutted our economy and a few got rich, many suffered. We are a nation, not a holding company.
The Australian Sky network featured Troodo on their "Lefties Losing It" segment, as the Neo-Marxist Ken Doll.
They showed a clip of 53 yr. old Troodo dancing away last Friday night at the Toronto Taylor Swift concert, while a few hours away in Montreal, the downtown core was engulfed in violent riots by the Pro-Hamas thugs.
Troodo seemed entirely unconcerned....as he tried to get the surrounding teenyboppers to take his friendship bracelets. He was his usual delusional self, with his country in crisis. Did I mention that Troodo's own parliamentary seat is in Montreal?
Canadian, here. This will have a brutal impact on our country. And I 100% agree with you.
We have to protect ourselves,
And much of it and indeed the justification by Trump is drugs and illegal immigration.
And of course our industrial base being rebuilt.
I could not agree more. God bless America.
There will be an even more brutal impact on what remains of Canada if we cannot oust JT and the Liberals, ASAP.
Most decent Canadians would be willing to sacrifice to the tariffs to get rid of the Fentanyl flow and porous border likely arranged by JT and his Communist Chinese buddies.
I hope you are correct, but I fear most Canadians are clueless.
I know some good ones. Although I have to agree that we also have too many herd creatures. Someone needs to take them in hand and lead them, because they seem unable to lead themselves.
I would be happy to stand as Senator...😁
A very Canadian problem, the need for a shepherd. It seems baked into the DNA.
I don't know you, but you couldn't possibly be worse than what we have :D
Well, most of my ancestors started out in Canada as the earliest British/Europeans here, then as United Empire Loyalists. We gave this country everything we had. Though by 2024 I am on the verge of telling my kids to leave for the US or Australia.
I'm sorry and I don't blame you.
I had already commented on these possible tariffs in your last article. Being a Canadian myself, I could see it coming.
Trump has Troodo running scared now. Over 90% of Canadians very dearly wish that we could oust Troodo and his party. Very soon.
Or as the t-shirts say....Truck Frudeau!"
Note that the Premier of the province of Alberta is siding with Trump, an American leader, rather than with the Canadian curse, Troodo.
We have to come to terms with a basic and unalterable economic reality: there is no such thing as "free trade" between nations.
It does not happen. In the modern world, it cannot happen. So long as government stands in the middle -- and trade agreements are merely a guarantee that government will never not be in the middle -- free and unfettered trade cannot happen.
Accordingly, tariffs are an inevitable means of equalizing the distortions to markets caused by incessant government meddling.
Tariffs are made necessary because the moment one market actor anywhere gains a measure of economic and political power, that actor will distort the market. Not "may", not "could", but WILL. Every time.
Free trade is a utopian fantasy. The best we can achieve is "fair" trade, which is subjective and is fundamentally whatever is the most advantageous trade relationship any one nation can secure for itself.
I completely agree Peter! Just like there is no such thing as the “free market”. I would be in favor of a global voluntary exchange system with no regulation, but alas, that is not the way that descendants of chimpanzees work. Furthermore the subsidization of foreign goods and currency manipulation (could be solved by dissolving subsidies and gold as a medium of exchange) means that the US cannot afford to produce its own goods which further moves the productive class from the equities class away from one another.
As has been apocryphally attributed to Einstein, “In theory, theory and reality are the same. In reality, theory and reality are different.”
There is no argument to be made against the premise that whenever markets are allowed to function in a fully free and unfettered fashion—which also means no market power and rent-seeking behavior from any of the participants—that the general levels of market activity, supply, demand, and overall prosperity will establish equilibrium at a higher level than in any other scenario.
Unfortunately, the conditions necessary for that free and unfettered market rarely exist in the real world, and when they do exist the corrupt practices of any one market participant is sufficient to alter the outcome. While this results in suboptimal outcomes for the market as a whole, for the participants with market power, it results in an optimal outcome.
Thus the marketplace not only proves Adam Smith correct about the invisible hand, but also proves Lord Acton correct about the consequences of power.
And it is in that corrupted marketplace that we must transact daily business.
And the tariffs that sit on the books for decades? We have corn syrup poisoning us because of sugar tariffs that benefit a few sugar companies in the states. Once companies are protected, they stop improving and raise their prices since their competitors are more expensive. Then they bribe “lobby” to keep the tariffs and we keep paying the price.
No, tariffs are never a good choice. Let's go the extreme. What if China would be willing to send their material (cars, coal, oil, steel, whatever), would you recommend that we would not accept these products? You would refuse to receive good products at no cost? Of course this is never going to happen, but it shows just how stupid tariffs are. It is a lose-lose situation. The people of the importing country have to pay a higher price while the exporter gains less profit. Who is the winner? Nobody. It is just another tax on the people of both countries and leads to distortions in the market place.
Disagree, free trade has led to the hollowing out of the middle class. If we don’t get our trade policy in order we will continue to see the separation between the equity and productive classes. A lake of trade balance will lead to more poverty misery and unaffordability in the US
I will say this, we know that NAFTA in the 90s and the opening of trade with China in the late 70s and 80s directly led to the economic conditions which produced the political wave that Trump could surf to the presidency. The hollowing out of the Rust Belt and the diminishing purchasing power of the median American were directly caused by the outsourcing of production overseas. We also have much lower quality goods, from clothing, to furniture, to luggage and building materials.
I know it is a popular opinion at think tanks that Tariffs reduce consumption (I think this is true), but the lack of tariffs means that there are only viable economic opportunities for 25% of Americans. The truth is we have put our economy in a position where it is too expensive to produce many items for export because our fixed costs of regulation, financing and personnel are so high that our firms cannot compete. See: farming. We cannot produce corn and soy at the prices required for international trade which is why the USDA crop insurance program pays out every year (and taxpayers pay most of the insurance premiums). This is why we produce cars in Mexico.
To pretend that free trade has been a boon for all Americans is incorrect. Free trade is fantastic for the stock market, it is fantastic for multinationals who want to employ slaves (see Apple, Nike et al). Free trade is terrible for any person who works in resource extraction in the US - basically a commodity producer - because of course it will be cheaper to produce commodities in Brazil, China, Africa: they have little to no environmental or employment regulations. Mines, farms, timberland, oil are all tough businesses in the US because increasingly the technology and finance that has given US firms a competitive advantage over others is available throughout the world. (A 32 row combine for corn costs 1/10th in China of what it does in the US).
If you have different regulatory and capital environments, allowing free trade will ensure that those countries with the lowest regulations will be the producers, meaning our commodities will be produced in the maximally irresponsible way. This is the status quo. It would be better if we extracted lumber from American forests responsibly. It would be better if we grew American food responsibly. It would be better if we mined gold in Nevada responsibly vs the Congo with civil war.
I agree with your assessment that Tariffs are a useful threat for any US president, but I reject the evidence that free trade has improved the living standard of Americans, because it most definitely has not. In fact, free trade is precisely why we have a lowering workforce participation rate and why we have lost all sorts of Mom and Pop businesses over the last 50 years. Free trade and globalization are synonyms, and both are the friend of the stock trader and the enemy of the farmer.
Tarriffs yes, and reduce or eliminate income tax.
Tariffs YES!
No matter the country, the consumer ultimately pays for these foolish tariffs. Do you think countries can't retaliate using tariffs of their own?
Yes