Protectionism

[Samson]

Protectionism has been proven stupid for nearly 200 years, ever since Ricardo.

It makes no sense for people to pay extra for something you can get cheaper elsewhere.

If protection was a good idea, each family would still be chipping their own arrowheads and fletching their own arrows themselves.

Bad luck if you didn't have obsidian on your territory, and had to make do with basalt or agate.

Even if you are better at something than someone else, if you can make more resources for yourself doing something they can't, you still do better to hire the less competent person.

Milton Friedman uses the example of a lawyer who can type at 80wpm hiring a typist who can type at 30 wpm. The lawyers time is worth $200 per hour, the typist 's time is worth 8.

Meh....I don't often disagree, but on this point I do: Protectionism can in some circumstances be advantageous: For example, if the USA wanted to employ every unemployed person in the country, it could simply create trade barriers for all imported textile goods.

 

[Big Fitz]

Well said. It then comes down to cost effectiveness. As one of my liberal friends bitterly complained last night, "too many people think with their wallet". This is true. Now, if you did restrict trade in foreign textile goods, the American industry would resurge in line with the restrictions. But also, prices for consumers of these textile goods WILL increase in the nation to support the reasons that American textile industries are so uncompetitive. A good measure of course of what the real issue is would be to do a cost effectiveness study on the foreign nation's industry, and isolate the factors that make them a cheaper source. Most cases of this seem to end up in a few broad areas: abscence of:

Social services
litigation
insurance mandates
wage controls
safety standards
environmental protection
government subsidy
slave/forced labor.

very rarely do you find industries outside America more modern and productive per worker, and even then it is not the rule but exception.

Ultimately, it comes down to what cost in jobs and economics does protectionism bring or prevent. The cost must be weighed by the people most affected by it. What makes this worse is that these decisions are not honestly made when discussed, but become a mire of special interests both for and against while the real cost on the uninvolved society suffers as those involved parties get their way without any consideration for the rest. This is where government SHOULD be more inclined. The interested parties are here blabbing away trying to get the biggest slice of the pie. What about those who are not here and will be affected by it? Who protects them from special interests voting (buying at the expense of others) themselves goodies. Most times, it is better for the government to do nothing, for the sake of the majority, and prevent the favoring of a loud special interest.

 

[Samson]

Well said. It then comes down to cost effectiveness. As one of my liberal friends bitterly complained last night, "too many people think with their wallet". This is true. Now, if you did restrict trade in foreign textile goods, the American industry would resurge in line with the restrictions. But also, prices for consumers of these textile goods WILL increase in the nation to support the reasons that American textile industries are so uncompetitive. A good measure of course of what the real issue is would be to do a cost effectiveness study on the foreign nation's industry, and isolate the factors that make them a cheaper source. Most cases of this seem to end up in a few broad areas: abscence of:

Social services
litigation
insurance mandates
wage controls
safety standards
environmental protection
government subsidy
slave/forced labor.

very rarely do you find industries outside America more modern and productive per worker, and even then it is not the rule but exception.

Ultimately, it comes down to what cost in jobs and economics does protectionism bring or prevent. The cost must be weighed by the people most affected by it. What makes this worse is that these decisions are not honestly made when discussed, but become a mire of special interests both for and against while the real cost on the uninvolved society suffers as those involved parties get their way without any consideration for the rest. This is where government SHOULD be more inclined. The interested parties are here blabbing away trying to get the biggest slice of the pie. What about those who are not here and will be affected by it? Who protects them from special interests voting (buying at the expense of others) themselves goodies. Most times, it is better for the government to do nothing, for the sake of the majority, and prevent the favoring of a loud special interest.

Hey, its all about JOBS......damn your inconvenient details.

Raise Tarriffs on all imported Textile Goods, and unless Americans stop wearing clothes, there won't be anyone looking for a job.

 

[Big Fitz]

Hey, its all about JOBS......damn your inconvenient details.

Life's a *****, then you die, then they throw dirt in your face, then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in THAT order.

Raise Tarriffs on all imported Textile Goods, and unless Americans stop wearing clothes, there won't be anyone looking for a job.

Yes, downside, clothes cost more. Upside, textile workers can afford the more expensive clothes. Downside, not everyone's earning the better money. Upside, more people are working in ancillary industries supporting those who are.

So yeah. which is more important? That's the end result of all protectionism. Jobs at home and more expensive goods for who knows how long, or jobs overseas and cheap goods for who knows how long.

One other point to bring up. All developing nations begin to get more expensive over time. The more rapidly their populations improve in wealth, the more rapidly they wish to improve their lot in life. They then demand improved government, civil services, living standards and all the fun things we in the developed nations have already. So this advantage is definite, but short lived.

Remember all those low skill low pay jobs that fled to japan? They then fled to china and korea when Japan got built back up. NOW after building up those areas in China and Korea, they are moving to Vietnam and Laos and Bangladesh and Malaysia. Jobs not even Chinese will do... as cheaply as the owners want. In this modern age, capital and industry is highly mobile and moves to the cheapest market to supply their base needs. And let's face it. Injection molded plastic manufacture is really cheap and easy to move and simple to train for. My bet is that in 20 years, there will be an industrial boom in Africa in nations stable enough to take it on or willing at least to protect these industries.

 

[Samson]

Hey, its all about JOBS......damn your inconvenient details.

Life's a *****, then you die, then they throw dirt in your face, then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in THAT order.

Raise Tarriffs on all imported Textile Goods, and unless Americans stop wearing clothes, there won't be anyone looking for a job.

Yes, downside, clothes cost more. Upside, textile workers can afford the more expensive clothes. Downside, not everyone's earning the better money. Upside, more people are working in ancillary industries supporting those who are.

AWWWW....clothes cost more........Maybe Muffy won't have 20 pairs of $80 jeans???

Buy AMERICAN or go NEKKID is gonna be My Campaign Slogan.

 

[johnrocks]

"Food for thought" here.



Protectionism: What It Costs

Classical Liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill astutely observed in the last century that "Trade barriers are chiefly injurious to the countries imposing them." It is true today as it was then, for the following reasons:

LOST JOBS: Protectionist laws raise taxes (tariffs) on imported goods and/or impose limits (quotas) on the amount of goods governments permit to enter into a country. They are laws that not only restrict the choice of consumer goods, but also contribute greatly both to the cost of goods and to the cost of doing business. So under "protectionism" you end up poorer, with less money for buying other things you want and need. Moreover, protectionist laws that reduce consumer spending power actually end up destroying jobs. In the USA, for example, according to the US Department of Labor's own statistics, "protectionism" destroys eight jobs in the general economy for every one saved in a protected industry.

HIGHER PRICES: Japanese consumers pay five times the world price for rice because of import restrictions protecting Japanese farmers. European consumers pay dearly for EC restrictions on food imports and heavy taxes for domestic farm subsidies. American consumers also suffer from the same double burden, paying six times the world price for sugar because of trade restrictions (to give but one example). The US Semiconductor Trade Pact, which pressured Japanese producers to cut back production of computer memory chips, caused an acute worldwide shortage of these widely used parts. Prices quadrupled and companies using these components in the production of electronic consumer goods, in various countries around the world, were badly hurt.

HIGHER TAXES: Protectionist laws not only force you to pay more taxes on imported goods, but also raise your general taxes as well. This is because governments invariably expand their Customs Department bureaucracies to force compliance with their new rounds of trade restrictions (or in the case of NAFTA, trade regulations). These bureaucrats must be paid. There is also the expense of more red tape and paperwork for trading companies and more harassment of individual travelers passing through the borders.

THE DEBT CRISIS: Western Banks are owed hundreds of billions of dollars by Eastern European and Third World countries. Trade restrictions by Western governments, however, have cut off Western markets for these countries, making it virtually impossible for them to earn the hard currencies necessary to repay their loans. This increases the very real possibility of a collapse of the world banking system.
Protectionism: Who Gains?

In spite of evidence of damage caused by trade restrictions, pressure for more "protectionist" laws persists. Who is behind this, and why?

Those who gain from "protectionist" laws are special-interest groups, such as some big corporations, unions, and farmers' groups – all of whom would like to get away with charging higher prices and getting higher wages than they could expect in a free marketplace. These special interests have the money and political clout for influencing politicians to pass laws favorable to them. Politicians in turn play on the fears of uninformed voters to rally support for these laws.

THE LOSERS? YOU and all other ordinary consumers. Your freedom is being trampled into the dust by these laws, and you are literally being robbed, through taxes and higher prices, in order to line the pockets of a few politically-privileged "fat cats."

"Protectionism is a misnomer. The only people protected by tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions are those engaged in uneconomic and wasteful activity. Free trade is the only philosophy compatible with international peace and prosperity."
Walter Block
Senior Economist, Fraser Institute (Canada)
ISIL -- Free Trade or Protectionism?

 

[Baruch Menachem]

What will those jobs pay? How much will this protection cost the consumer?

The problem we have is not stupid consumers, but stupid government. Next November, we will solve a major part of that.

We pay extra for stuff we should get cheaper, that means we have to do without on things we consider more important.

So instead of buying books and computers and so one, we have to pay extra for things of small value, and maybe give up stuff we would value more, but are less necessary. Or we have to pay more and get something we don't like much. I wouln't be able to afford my dress shirt, and have to wear a T shirt instead.

The definition of unfair.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

The Iowa Car Crop​

I found one of the most beautiful arguments I know while I was browsing through a textbook written by my friend David Friedman. While the argument might not be original, David’s vision is so clear, so concise, so incontrovertible, and so delightfully surprising, that I have been unable to resist sharing it with students, relatives, and cocktail party acquaintances at every opportunity. The argument involves international trade, but its appeal is less in its subject matter than in its irresistible force.
David’s observation is that there are two technologies for producing automobiles in America. One is to manufacture them in Detroit, and the other is to grow them in Iowa. Everybody knows about the first technology; let me tell you about the second. First, you plant seeds, which are the raw material from which automobiles are constructed. You wait a few months until wheat appears. Then you harvest the wheat, load it onto ships, and said the ships eastward into the Pacific Ocean. After a few months, the ships reappear with Toyotas on them.
International trade is nothing but a form of technology. The fact that there is a place called Japan, with people and factories, is quite irrelevant to Americans’ well-being. To analyze trade policies, we might as well assume that Japan is a giant machine with mysterious inner workings that convert wheat into cars.
Any policy designed to favor the first American technology over the second is a policy designed to favor American auto producers in Detroit over American auto producers in Iowa. A tax or a ban on “imported” automobiles is a tax or a ban on Iowa-grown automobiles. If you protect Detroit carmakers from competition, then you must damage Iowa farmers, because Iowa farmers are the competition.
The task of producing a given fleet of car can be allocated between Detroit and Iowa in a variety of ways. A competitive price system selects that allocation that minimizes the total production cost.* It would be unnecessarily expensive to manufacture all cars in Detroit, unnecessarily expensive to grow all cars in Iowa, and unnecessarily expensive to use the two production processes in anything other than the natural ratio that emerges as a result of competition.
That means that protection for Detroit does more than just transfer income from farmers to autoworkers. It also raises the total cost of providing Americans with a given number of automobiles. The efficiency loss comes with no offsetting gain; it impoverishes the nation as a whole.
There is much talk about improving the efficiency of American car manufacturing. When you have two ways to make a car, the road to efficiency is to use both in optimal proportions. The last thing you should want to do is to artificially hobble one of your production technologies. It is sheer superstition to think that an Iowa-grown Camry is any less “American” than a Detroit-built Taurus. Policies rooted in superstition do not frequently bear efficient fruit.
In 1817, David Ricardo—the first economist to think with the precision, though not the language, of pure mathematics—laid the foundation for all future thought about international trade. In the intervening 150 years his theory has been much elaborated but its foundations remain as firmly established as anything in economics. Trade theory predicts first that if you protect American producers in one industry from foreign competition, then you must damage American producers in other industries. It predicts second that if you protect American producers in one industry from foreign competition, there must be a net loss in economic efficiency. Ordinarily, textbooks establish these propositions through graphs, equations, and intricate reasoning. The little story that I learned from David Friedman makes the same propositions blindingly obvious with a single compelling metaphor. That is economics at its best.

Read it and learn

 

[antagon]

there have been many references to extreme applications of what i would call hard protectionism in an effort to paint the entire practice as a negative in our economy. at the hardest end of the spectrum are acts of war: embargos, blockades and sanctions. then there are trade protections like tariffs, quotas and regulatory restrictions. soft protections draw the least international scrutiny because they do not overtly challenge exports from other nations. these soft protections include monetary policy, subsidy, public private investment and willful regulatory capture.

those who think there is no argument for protectionism at all need to educate themselves on the many forms it can take and the implications for industry, both positive and negative. this goes for those who feel we could slap down hard protections like tariff without serious repercussions, too.

employing the presumption that there is one side to a multifaceted topic like trade is a device of fools. long rambles from economists notwithstanding.

 

[antagon]

The Iowa Car Crop​

To analyze trade policies, we might as well assume that Japan is a giant machine with mysterious inner workings that convert wheat into cars.

Read it and learn

this is big league horseshit, BM. for starters, japan's 'mysterious inner workings' entail heavy-handed protectionism.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

From the standpoint of the argument, it doesn't matter. It is a mystery machine. Wed don't know how it works (And for the last 20 years it has been working badly for the Japanese) all we know is it has input and output.
The argument is not about what is good for the Japanese, it is how the machine affects us. We dump in wheat, we get cars. If we put taxes on the importation of the cars, then money is taken from the wheat farmer and given to the auto worker. The wheat farmer gets less car for more money. Essentially, the wheat farmer is robbed.

The same argument could be made in japan. The rice farmer in Japan is robbed the same way. Just because the Japanese do stupid is no argument we should do likewise.

 

[Toro]

No. Almost never.

It encourages inefficiencies, lowers productivity and decreases wages, though it increases the wages of the privileged workers who benefit from protectionism at the expense of everyone else. Protectionism costs jobs and makes most people poorer, except for the people who benefit through political and not economic power.

The only time there should be protectionism, at least in this country, is if an industry is important to national security.

 

[loosecannon]

The Iowa Car Crop​

I found one of the most beautiful arguments I know while I was browsing through a textbook written by my friend David Friedman. While the argument might not be original, David’s vision is so clear, so concise, so incontrovertible, and so delightfully surprising, that I have been unable to resist sharing it with students, relatives, and cocktail party acquaintances at every opportunity. The argument involves international trade, but its appeal is less in its subject matter than in its irresistible force.
David’s observation is that there are two technologies for producing automobiles in America. One is to manufacture them in Detroit, and the other is to grow them in Iowa. Everybody knows about the first technology; let me tell you about the second. First, you plant seeds, which are the raw material from which automobiles are constructed. You wait a few months until wheat appears. Then you harvest the wheat, load it onto ships, and said the ships eastward into the Pacific Ocean. After a few months, the ships reappear with Toyotas on them.
International trade is nothing but a form of technology. The fact that there is a place called Japan, with people and factories, is quite irrelevant to Americans’ well-being. To analyze trade policies, we might as well assume that Japan is a giant machine with mysterious inner workings that convert wheat into cars.
Any policy designed to favor the first American technology over the second is a policy designed to favor American auto producers in Detroit over American auto producers in Iowa. A tax or a ban on “imported” automobiles is a tax or a ban on Iowa-grown automobiles. If you protect Detroit carmakers from competition, then you must damage Iowa farmers, because Iowa farmers are the competition.
The task of producing a given fleet of car can be allocated between Detroit and Iowa in a variety of ways. A competitive price system selects that allocation that minimizes the total production cost.* It would be unnecessarily expensive to manufacture all cars in Detroit, unnecessarily expensive to grow all cars in Iowa, and unnecessarily expensive to use the two production processes in anything other than the natural ratio that emerges as a result of competition.
That means that protection for Detroit does more than just transfer income from farmers to autoworkers. It also raises the total cost of providing Americans with a given number of automobiles. The efficiency loss comes with no offsetting gain; it impoverishes the nation as a whole.
There is much talk about improving the efficiency of American car manufacturing. When you have two ways to make a car, the road to efficiency is to use both in optimal proportions. The last thing you should want to do is to artificially hobble one of your production technologies. It is sheer superstition to think that an Iowa-grown Camry is any less “American” than a Detroit-built Taurus. Policies rooted in superstition do not frequently bear efficient fruit.
In 1817, David Ricardo—the first economist to think with the precision, though not the language, of pure mathematics—laid the foundation for all future thought about international trade. In the intervening 150 years his theory has been much elaborated but its foundations remain as firmly established as anything in economics. Trade theory predicts first that if you protect American producers in one industry from foreign competition, then you must damage American producers in other industries. It predicts second that if you protect American producers in one industry from foreign competition, there must be a net loss in economic efficiency. Ordinarily, textbooks establish these propositions through graphs, equations, and intricate reasoning. The little story that I learned from David Friedman makes the same propositions blindingly obvious with a single compelling metaphor. That is economics at its best.

Read it and learn

Dumb argument.

What people who favor globalization and detest protectionism, you, fail to see is that every nation is a closed loop and an open loop.

Globalization seeks to make the world's economy one huge mobius strip,or serpentine belt, open in every way.

But every nation still has their own closed loop or current accounts balance. In our case we have twin deficits which means because we get such great deals on Chinese shit cheap we spend more money on their shit than they do on ours and we become poorer, every single month.

And as long as other nations rig the system by engaging in currency manipulation we should COA as well.

On that note I heard just such an idea from one of the politicos in Japan recently.

He suggested that their deflation wasn't necessarily a bad thing.....if they used those inflated yen to buy raw materials producing firms abroad.

Since doing that would have no effect on the yen's deflation I figure what he must mean is: "if we use the bloated yen to start buying real assets abroad , i bet the rest of the wold figures out a way to suppress our yen for us".

He was speaking of protectionism. Just not the simple classic kind we all understand. But their are many ways to manipulate the markets to strengthen your own nation at the expense of others.

That's protectionism.

 

[loosecannon]

The only time there should be protectionism, at least in this country, is if an industry is important to national security.

or to protect your currency, or gain access to resources.

 

[antagon]

From the standpoint of the argument, it doesn't matter. It is a mystery machine. Wed don't know how it works (And for the last 20 years it has been working badly for the Japanese) all we know is it has input and output.
The argument is not about what is good for the Japanese, it is how the machine affects us. We dump in wheat, we get cars. If we put taxes on the importation of the cars, then money is taken from the wheat farmer and given to the auto worker. The wheat farmer gets less car for more money. Essentially, the wheat farmer is robbed.

The same argument could be made in japan. The rice farmer in Japan is robbed the same way. Just because the Japanese do stupid is no argument we should do likewise.

this is not how trade works. not literally or symbolically. we are fully aware of japanese protectionism. there is no mystery with regard to the advantages which companies like toyota enjoy because of the policies of their government. wheat is not bartered for cars. the sale of wheat has an extremely marginal relationship with the incomes of americans, which is the driving force of the demand which brings toyotas here. wheat production in the US is heavily protected, to slather on even more ineptitude to this demonstration of just how stupid persons out to oversimplify this topic can be.

drop the retarded wheatcars. dont send your kids to A&M.

 

[antagon]

No. Almost never.

It encourages inefficiencies, lowers productivity and decreases wages, though it increases the wages of the privileged workers who benefit from protectionism at the expense of everyone else. Protectionism costs jobs and makes most people poorer, except for the people who benefit through political and not economic power.

The only time there should be protectionism, at least in this country, is if an industry is important to national security.

can you expand on your net job loss/depressive theory?

the UK is a prime example of a country which has not emplaced policy competitive with other countries. as a direct result of a failure to protect their industry with the aim of unsubstantiated returns of a free market, english industry and their job market has suffered considerably. when does the state of the job market become 'important to national security'?

 

[Baruch Menachem]

From the standpoint of the argument, it doesn't matter. It is a mystery machine. Wed don't know how it works (And for the last 20 years it has been working badly for the Japanese) all we know is it has input and output.
The argument is not about what is good for the Japanese, it is how the machine affects us. We dump in wheat, we get cars. If we put taxes on the importation of the cars, then money is taken from the wheat farmer and given to the auto worker. The wheat farmer gets less car for more money. Essentially, the wheat farmer is robbed.

The same argument could be made in japan. The rice farmer in Japan is robbed the same way. Just because the Japanese do stupid is no argument we should do likewise.

this is not how trade works. not literally or symbolically. we are fully aware of japanese protectionism. there is no mystery with regard to the advantages which companies like toyota enjoy because of the policies of their government. wheat is not bartered for cars. the sale of wheat has an extremely marginal relationship with the incomes of americans, which is the driving force of the demand which brings toyotas here. wheat production in the US is heavily protected, to slather on even more ineptitude to this demonstration of just how stupid persons out to oversimplify this topic can be.

drop the retarded wheatcars. dont send your kids to A&M.

We don't need to know what is going on in Japan, except as a bad example. Japan's protectionism has behaved like a banana in the exhaust of the their economy. They are suffering for it.

But as for what we need to know for ourselves is, putting a tax on A's products so that B has to pay extra and get less of what he wants from C is criminal.

If everyone does it, then everyone gets shafted equally, and is to that degree poorer.

 

[Toro]

Dumb argument.

What people who favor globalization and detest protectionism, you, fail to see is that every nation is a closed loop and an open loop.

Globalization seeks to make the world's economy one huge mobius strip,or serpentine belt, open in every way.

But every nation still has their own closed loop or current accounts balance. In our case we have twin deficits which means because we get such great deals on Chinese shit cheap we spend more money on their shit than they do on ours and we become poorer, every single month.

Current account deficits do not make us poorer (necessarily). You can see this in an example of a two-nation economy.

Let's say that you have two economies - countries A and B - that are in an equilibrium state such that there is no current account deficit between the two. Trade is in "balance." Now lets say that in country A, there is a technological breakthrough which makes profitability and economic growth higher which causes capital in country B to flow into the country A. This will cause country A to have a capital account surplus with country B. Since a capital account surplus must equal a current account deficit, i.e. a trade deficit, country A will run a trade deficit with country B. Yet you cannot argue that country B is better off than country A. Because country A is now richer, it will demand for goods from abroad, increasing its imports and thus incurring a trade deficit. As wealth rises in country A, it will increase its demand, including demand from abroad. This trade deficit with country B will be financed by country A.

Of course, the world is a much subtler place. The protectionists point to Chinese currency manipulation as a reason to slap on tariffs against China. However, because of the yuan peg to the dollar, China has to recycle dollars back into the states, which means it increases the demand for US bonds which lowers interest rates. Thus the cost of capital in America is lower than it otherwise would be, which benefits the American economy, even though the policy of pegging the yuan has hurt specific sectors of the US economy. China has not hollowed American manufacturing. It has hollowed out low-productivity manufacturing. This country is still the largest manufacturer in the world by far. However, the cost of lower interest rates has been the transfer of low productivity jobs to Asia.

It has also created other problems. The pegging of the yuan to the dollar has created enormous imbalances in the world economy. It has contributed to the housing bubble and thus the financial crisis. It has created a housing bubble in China. It has created an enormously skewed economy in China, which has too much capacity, and will one day crash. But it is hard to see how slapping tariffs on Chinese goods would alleviate this. Tariffs would lower demand for our bonds and cause interest rates to rise, which is the opposite of what we want. The best thing to do would be to forcefully argue to China that it is in China's best interests to allow the yuan to float.

 

[Big Fitz]

Okay, let's ask this question on those who are against all forms of protectionism. I'd really like to know what's wrong with these uses of protectionism.

1. China. Unfairly pegged currency to foster an economic war (killing us with kindness) against the US. Should there be some form of trade barrier to prevent this?

2. Thai sweatshops (yes they're everywhere, but I'm just using this example). If we know the laborers are being used essentially as slaves, and pocketing the difference given them by the unfair economic economic advantage brought about by such inhumane treatment, should we foist a tariff on them to make them pay the equivalent of what they would if they had hired American workers, and not 'slaves'? I don't care about the social ethical aspects, I'm talking national economic protectionism.

3. National oil companies. Should a barrier be placed against companies who are able to compete and dominate a market solely because their nation unfairly subsidizes them and protect our nation's companies who are not subsidized?

Of course there's always the question of, if you DO collect such duties, and trade penalties, who gets the money? From where I sit, it shouldn't just go into the general coffers, mostly because the government has a tendency to waste it. It would possibly be better served to use as a tax rebate. That way the money would not cause government growth, but be put in the pockets of citizens to grow the economy, invest and generally do the work of the nation.

Thoughts?

 

[antagon]

Just because the Japanese do stupid is no argument we should do likewise.

this is not how trade works... .drop the retarded wheatcars. dont send your kids to A&M.

We don't need to know what is going on in Japan, except as a bad example. Japan's protectionism has behaved like a banana in the exhaust of the their economy. They are suffering for it.

But as for what we need to know for ourselves is, putting a tax on A's products so that B has to pay extra and get less of what he wants from C is criminal.

If everyone does it, then everyone gets shafted equally, and is to that degree poorer.

i believe that protectionism is the reason why toyota is the most prolific brand of car in the world. you have alluded to tariff-based protection, which is not the only way which a country can support or protect their industry. i went over a number of methods earlier. tariffs are not examples of how toyota derives their competitive advantage from japanese policy.

are you seriously claiming that japanese industrial policy is what is responsible for their economic woes? if so, without referring to rice or wheat farmers who are nominally relevant to the topic, can you explain how this is the case?