Trump’s Theory of Tariffs Makes No Sense
For weeks, President Donald Trump has been telling Americans that his plan to impose high tariffs on the country’s top trading partners would usher in an era of prosperity not seen in well over 100 years.
“The tariffs are going to make us very rich and very strong,” Trump said Friday. “They don’t cause inflation. They cause success.” The president has been using variations on this same argument for months (for years, actually). They are “going to make us rich,” he said in December. “In the 1890s, our country was probably the wealthiest it ever was because it was a system of tariffs,” he said last year on the campaign trail.
This is bullshit, by the way. The high tariffs that America imposed during the late 19th century did not make America rich and did not make American manufacturing strong. It’s also absurd to claim that the country was at its wealthiest in an era when most people did not have access to indoor plumbing, electricity, or modern medical care—and when the average person was, objectively, much poorer.
But leave all that aside for a moment. Let’s assume that Trump sincerely holds this belief: that tariffs are a wealth-generating tool, and that their implementation will return the country to its proper place as the wealthiest, most successful, most respected nation on the planet.
If all that’s true, then how to explain what Trump did this morning?
“President Donald Trump held off Monday on his tariff threats against M
Article from Reason.com
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