Republicans’ Tariffs Take Away Individuals’ Freedom
When I specialize in the work that others pay me more for, I produce more of what people value.
If one of my customers lives where he is subject to different government people, often those people force him to pay them some money before he can buy my work.
Tariffs Done Right versus Tariffs Done Wrong
President Trump has raised a chance that those government people might get pushed back against by USA national government people.
True reciprocal tariffs could be levied product category by product category. That would target those government people and their cronies very precisely, crony by crony. This targeting would systematically incentivize those government people to eliminate their tariffs. That would help me specialize in the work that my customer pays me more for.
But the tariffs that Trump is calling reciprocal, aren’t. And they aren’t half the tariffs that would be reciprocal. Trump isn’t assessing his tariff rates based on different government people’s tariff rates. He’s assessing his tariff rates based on how much more our people import from a nation’s people than we export to the nation’s people.
So Trump isn’t targeting other nations’ government/crony relationships, crony by crony. Instead, he’s keeping in place and protecting all the harms that governments are currently wreaking as they outlaw sound moneys, borrow and spend, and regulate.
Further, Trump’s tariff rates ratchet up how many decisions our national government takes out of the hands of customers (the people who work out what’s most valuable to them), and takes out of the hands of producers (the people who work out the best ways to produce value).
Trump is issuing overall edicts, both directly on our people and indirectly on other nations’ people. Other nations’ government people are being called on to issue edicts on their people to try to make the USA imports from and exports to each of their nations nation balance in the ways that Trump and the other government people think are best.
When Individuals Are Free to Use Good Money, Individuals Balance Trade
What’s actually best for my customers and me is to be left alone. Then we make our best decisions for ourselves.
To enable the rest of us to add the most value ourselves, government people must limit other government people to within good boundaries.
Governments are justly instituted only to secure individuals’ unalienable rights, among which are individuals’ rights to life, liberty, and secure property. Above all, governments must make these rights secure from the grabbing hands of government people and their cronies. Every other action is out of bounds for government people, if they do their jobs justly.
Left to ourselves, free people would produce and use sound moneys, starting with gold. This would leave it to individuals to balance out the trade among the people of various nations.
The USA people could temporarily buy more imports. But then the USA people would end up with less gold to spend to buy products made by other nations’ people. Also, other nations’ people would end up wi
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
