Tariff Hysteria

---

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade/trade-wars-are-good-trump-says-defying-global-concern-over-tariffs-idUSKCN1GE1PM

Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, you already know about the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports that Trump announced on Wednesday.  The reaction has bordered on mass hysteria, especially among “economists.”  I put that word in quotation marks because those who present themselves as experts in the field, but either lack the curiosity required to examine the effects of population growth, the biggest factor driving the global economy today or purposely avoid it because the findings would destroy their credibility, aren’t worthy of being dignified with the label.  One such “economist,” representing a “think tank” whose purpose it is to advance the cause of globalization (that is, the fleecing of Americans to prop up the economies of grossly overpopulated nations), described Trump’s tariff plan as a “return to 18th century trade policy.”  Apparently he doesn’t understand that the use of tariffs dominated U.S. trade policy through the first half of the 20th century, transforming the U.S. into the world’s preeminent industrial power and the world’s only “super-power.”

The reaction on Wall Street was swift, with market indexes falling several percent.  But not the stocks of U.S. steel producers.  Those actually rose several percent.  So what does that tell you?  Unlike “economists,” investors are people who put their money where their mouth is.  Investors fear what this move could mean for inflation and the broader economy, but they know very well it’ll be a big boost to steel and aluminum producers.  If tariffs are good for that industry, doesn’t it stand to reason that they’d be good for others if applied to those products as well?  How about autos?  Electronics?  Appliances?  The fact is that every U.S. producer of every category of product where the U.S. has a trade deficit would benefit from tariffs.

Virtually every media outlet since Trump “tweeted” about the tariffs soon after announcing them has quoted him as saying “… trade wars are good and easy to win …” in an effort to make him sound like a buffoon.  At least the above-linked Reuters article does provide the full quote further down in the article:

“When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win,” Trump said on Twitter on Friday.

Put in the context of our massive trade deficit which, in terms of manufactured goods, isn’t just billions but is now approaching a trillion dollars a year, he is exactly right – a trade war would be a good thing and not only would it be “easy to win,” it’d be impossible to do anything but win and win big.  “Economists” and other countries don’t want you to know that.  They want to scare you with warnings of retailiation by other countries:

Europe has drawn up a list of U.S. products on which to apply tariffs if Trump follows through on his plan.

“We will put tariffs on Harley-Davidson, on bourbon and on blue jeans – Levi’s,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told German television.

Wow, that shows you how far down the list of products they had to go to find some that they actually import from the U.S.  And “blue jeans?”  Seriously?  Don’t they know that even Levis aren’t made in the U.S. any more?  Regardless, do you really want to go there, Europe?  Go ahead.  Slap tariffs on Harleys and bourbon.  We’ll retaliate with tariffs on cars.  See how you like that!  How long would Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, Porsche and all the others survive without access to the U.S. market?

Another popular warning among the globalist fear mongers is that higher prices will be passed along to U.S. consumers.  The cost of every product that uses steel and aluminum will soar.  That’s utter nonsense.  When foreign steel producers have to raise their prices by 25% to cover the tariffs, will their customers continue buying their steel or will they simply turn to American suppliers that weren’t that much more expensive in the first place?  That’s the whole purpose of a tariff – not to collect revenue and make American consumers pay more, but to force the buyers of those products to switch to American suppliers.

There is a legitimate fear among manufacturers that forcing them to pay more for steel and aluminum, even if it’s only slighly more when they switch to American suppliers, will make them less competitive with foreign imports.  Here’s one example quoted in the article:

But home appliance maker Electrolux (ELUXb.ST) said it was delaying a $250 million expansion of its plant in Tennessee as it was worried U.S. steel prices would rise and make manufacturing there less competitive.

OK, Electrolux, would you change your mind if Trump also levied a tariff on imported appliances?  Not only would you go forward with your planned expansion, you’d probably rush to develop plans for more and bigger expansions.  My point is that these tariffs on steel and aluminum are a good start, but to have a real impact on the economy, they need to be levied on virtually every imported product so that, in every case, American consumers will choose the less expensive U.S.-made products.  Will that stoke inflation?  Sure, but not as fast as the demand for labor would send wages up.

Other fear mongers have raised the spectre of another scary scenario, where heavy buyers of U.S. debt, like China, would retaliate by dumping their bond holdings, driving up interest rates and inflation along with it.  Could they do that?  Sure, if they wanted to shoot themselves in the foot.  They’d be driving down the value of their biggest investments.  And let’s not forget that, as the U.S. trade deficit shrinks in response to the tariffs, the U.S. will be issuing less debt.  So the U.S. will be pulling bond issues off the table as fast as China and others try to sell theirs.  The end result is a wash and their “retaliation” will end up only hurting themselves.

The tariffs on steel and aluminum, on top of a few other small, targeted tariffs (like the recent tariffs on washers) are good, small steps.  But they’re nothing compared to what really needs to be done – the application of tariffs across the entire spectrum of manufactured goods.  To do that, the U.S. needs to withdraw from the World Trade Organization.  Or perhaps it doesn’t matter.  The only power the WTO has is to authorize other nations to retaliate – nothing more than they would do anyway, even if the WTO never existed.

A trade war?  We’ve been in a trade war ever since our country was founded.  The problem is that, with the signing of the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947 – the forerunner of the World Trade Organization – the U.S. gave up the fight.  The U.S. laid down and let others begin feeding on it like a swarm of parasites.  It’s high time we put up a fight again.