It is important to recognize that the problems cited by many of the most ardent tariff advocates are real. Many once-thriving communities across this country have been artificially hollowed out by federal policies that aim to benefit a few huge, well-connected companies at the expense of everyone else. And the American working class has been forced to subsidize and later bail out multinational corporations while bankrolling a costly global police force that nearly every other country on Earth gets to benefit from essentially for free. The American people really are getting ripped off.
But tariff advocates need to understand that these problems are caused by tyrannical government overreach, not an abundance of freedom. The path out of our national mess lies in gutting the burdensome federal bureaucracy, calling off Washington’s global imperial project, abolishing the laws and regulations that warp the economy to benefit the politically connected rich, and returning the control over the monetary system to the American people. It does not lie in raising our taxes.
This is what Trump is threatening the world with: “We will shoot ourselves in the foot to make you do what we want.” When will he learn? I think, only after he has shot us in the foot once or twice. Tariffs will not make up for all the bad economic decisions that have been made to line the pockets of the government and donor overlords. In fact, tariffs will only make things worse. What needs being done is to stop the legislative delegation of legislative powers to the administrative state’s will and to nullify all of the previously promulgated administrative regulations. Balancing the budget and ending the fed would be nice, too, as long as I am dreaming.