Why Tariffs Are Good: The Case for Tariffs

[mikegriffith1]

Tariffs protect industries and businesses, especially vital industries, from unfair foreign competition. Tariffs prevent huge sums of income from leaving the U.S. America became the industrial giant of the world behind the protective walls of sky-high tariffs for decades.

No, tariffs did not cause or contribute to the Great Depression--that's an old Democrat myth that was floated by FDR and his crowd to attack Republican trade policy, and it's a myth that some Libertarians misguidedly, mistakenly repeat.

Numerous nations around the world have developed their economies by using high tariffs. Think about this: If tariffs are so bad for consumers and the economy, why do so many other nations impose tariffs, including Canada, Mexico, China, Brazil, Argentina, the European Union, Japan, India, South Korea, and Taiwan?

Some reading for further research:

Why Tariffs Are Good

The claim that tariffs are inherently misguided and inevitably harmful does not stand up to scrutiny, especially when it comes to U.S. trade with China

www.tabletmag.com

Trump's Tariffs Are About Securing America's Future

Americans should not be gaslit into having to choose between sovereignty and safety or low prices.

thefederalist.com

In a Victory for Autoworkers, Auto Tariffs Mark the Beginning of the End of NAFTA and the “Free Trade” Disaster - UAW | United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America

Days after Volkswagen, the #2 automaker in the world, announced making $20.6 billion in profit in 2024, a new UAW survey of VW workers in Chattanooga reveals the devastating financial toll of VW’s substandard U.S. health care offerings.

uaw.org

Tariffs Are The Only Way To Restore Long-Term Economic Health

To make America make things again, tariffs are the only option.

thefederalist.com

 

[sealybobo]

Tariffs protect industries and businesses, especially vital industries, from unfair foreign competition. Tariffs prevent huge sums of income from leaving the U.S. America became the industrial giant of the world behind the protective walls of sky-high tariffs for decades.

No, tariffs did not cause or contribute to the Great Depression--that's an old Democrat myth that was floated by FDR and his crowd to attack Republican trade policy, and it's a myth that some Libertarians misguidedly, mistakenly repeat.

Numerous nations around the world have developed their economies by using high tariffs. Think about this: If tariffs are so bad for consumers and the economy, why do so many other nations impose tariffs, including Canada, Mexico, China, Brazil, Argentina, the European Union, Japan, India, South Korea, and Taiwan?

Some reading for further research:

Why Tariffs Are Good

The claim that tariffs are inherently misguided and inevitably harmful does not stand up to scrutiny, especially when it comes to U.S. trade with China

www.tabletmag.com

Trump's Tariffs Are About Securing America's Future

Americans should not be gaslit into having to choose between sovereignty and safety or low prices.

thefederalist.com

In a Victory for Autoworkers, Auto Tariffs Mark the Beginning of the End of NAFTA and the “Free Trade” Disaster - UAW | United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America

Days after Volkswagen, the #2 automaker in the world, announced making $20.6 billion in profit in 2024, a new UAW survey of VW workers in Chattanooga reveals the devastating financial toll of VW’s substandard U.S. health care offerings.

uaw.org

Tariffs Are The Only Way To Restore Long-Term Economic Health

To make America make things again, tariffs are the only option.

thefederalist.com

Yes, strategic, targeted tariffs are wise. Every country protects its vital industries. Only america didn’t because American corporations wanted to send all those high paying union jobs to Mexico and China.

But trump isn’t doing targeted strategic tariffs is he?

 

[sealybobo]

Tariffs protect industries and businesses, especially vital industries, from unfair foreign competition. Tariffs prevent huge sums of income from leaving the U.S. America became the industrial giant of the world behind the protective walls of sky-high tariffs for decades.

No, tariffs did not cause or contribute to the Great Depression--that's an old Democrat myth that was floated by FDR and his crowd to attack Republican trade policy, and it's a myth that some Libertarians misguidedly, mistakenly repeat.

Numerous nations around the world have developed their economies by using high tariffs. Think about this: If tariffs are so bad for consumers and the economy, why do so many other nations impose tariffs, including Canada, Mexico, China, Brazil, Argentina, the European Union, Japan, India, South Korea, and Taiwan?

Some reading for further research:

Why Tariffs Are Good

The claim that tariffs are inherently misguided and inevitably harmful does not stand up to scrutiny, especially when it comes to U.S. trade with China

www.tabletmag.com

Trump's Tariffs Are About Securing America's Future

Americans should not be gaslit into having to choose between sovereignty and safety or low prices.

thefederalist.com

In a Victory for Autoworkers, Auto Tariffs Mark the Beginning of the End of NAFTA and the “Free Trade” Disaster - UAW | United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America

Days after Volkswagen, the #2 automaker in the world, announced making $20.6 billion in profit in 2024, a new UAW survey of VW workers in Chattanooga reveals the devastating financial toll of VW’s substandard U.S. health care offerings.

uaw.org

Tariffs Are The Only Way To Restore Long-Term Economic Health

To make America make things again, tariffs are the only option.

thefederalist.com

Here is evidence that you republicans have flip flopped on this issue. It was YOU who said tariffs caused the Great Depression. At least in the 2000s.

Also, this is an op Ed from a liberal agreeing with trump. Sort of. Because across the board tariffs is stupid. Like why coffee? Are we going to start growing enough in Hawaii?

When conservatives rail in the media of the dangers of "returning to Smoot Hawley, which created the Great Depression," all they do is reveal their ignorance of economics and history. The Smoot-Hawley tariff legislation, which increased taxes on some imported goods by a third to two-thirds to protect American industries, was signed into law on June 17, 1930, well into the Great Depression. In the following two years, international trade dropped from 6 percent of GNP to roughly 2 percent of GNP (between 1930 and 1932), but most of that was the result of the depression going worldwide, not Smoot-Hawley. The main result of Smoot-Hawley was that American businesses now had strong financial incentives to do business with other American companies, rather than bring in products made with cheaper foreign labor: Americans started trading with other Americans.

Smoot-Hawley "protectionist" legislation did not cause the Great Depression, and while it may have had a slight short-term negative effect on the economy ("1.4 percent at most" according to many historians) its long-term effect was to bring American jobs back to America.

Democracy - Not "The Free Market" - Will Save America's Middle Class

Here are a couple of headlines for those who haven't had the time to study both economics and history: There is no such thing as a "free market." The "middle class" is the creation of government intervention in the marketplace, and won't exist without it (as millions of Americans and Europeans...

www.thomhartmann.com

 

[rightwinger]

Tariffs are a tax on consumers
Manufacturing brought to the US will not mean lots of jobs……new factories will be automated

Besides…we have 3 percent unemployment
Why start a trade war?

 

[22lcidw]

Tariffs are a tax on consumers
Manufacturing brought to the US will not mean lots of jobs……new factories will be automated

Besides…we have 3 percent unemployment
Why start a trade war?

It will mean we take care of ourselves as a sovereign nation. And there are people working more than one job because of lower wages.

 

[rightwinger]

It will mean we take care of ourselves as a sovereign nation. And there are people working more than one job because of lower wages.

Yup

It is us against the world
We used to have strong economic partnerships where we team up to compete internationally

Now, Trump has declared war on the world

 

[80zephyr]

Tariffs are a tax on consumers
Manufacturing brought to the US will not mean lots of jobs……new factories will be automated

Besides…we have 3 percent unemployment
Why start a trade war?

Its a matter of national security. As a world power, we simply cannot rely on anyone else to provide us our goods. I doubt we even have the capability to produce critical products(like cell phones) any more.

 

[DonGlock26]

Tariffs protect industries and businesses, especially vital industries, from unfair foreign competition. Tariffs prevent huge sums of income from leaving the U.S. America became the industrial giant of the world behind the protective walls of sky-high tariffs for decades.

No, tariffs did not cause or contribute to the Great Depression--that's an old Democrat myth that was floated by FDR and his crowd to attack Republican trade policy, and it's a myth that some Libertarians misguidedly, mistakenly repeat.

Numerous nations around the world have developed their economies by using high tariffs. Think about this: If tariffs are so bad for consumers and the economy, why do so many other nations impose tariffs, including Canada, Mexico, China, Brazil, Argentina, the European Union, Japan, India, South Korea, and Taiwan?

Some reading for further research:

Why Tariffs Are Good

The claim that tariffs are inherently misguided and inevitably harmful does not stand up to scrutiny, especially when it comes to U.S. trade with China

www.tabletmag.com

Trump's Tariffs Are About Securing America's Future

Americans should not be gaslit into having to choose between sovereignty and safety or low prices.

thefederalist.com

In a Victory for Autoworkers, Auto Tariffs Mark the Beginning of the End of NAFTA and the “Free Trade” Disaster - UAW | United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America

Days after Volkswagen, the #2 automaker in the world, announced making $20.6 billion in profit in 2024, a new UAW survey of VW workers in Chattanooga reveals the devastating financial toll of VW’s substandard U.S. health care offerings.

uaw.org

Tariffs Are The Only Way To Restore Long-Term Economic Health

To make America make things again, tariffs are the only option.

thefederalist.com

Progressives do not want to protect American workers. They are the party of the globalist elites who love to exploit cheap foreign labor.

 

[berg80]

Dude, bad timing to write that nonsense.

Dow futures drop more than 1,000 points after China retaliates with tariffs on U.S. goods

Stock futures slid Friday after China imposed new tariffs on U.S. goods in retaliation to the levies announced by the White House earlier this week.

Futures tied to the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 936 points, or 2.3%. S&P 500 futures lost 2.2%, and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 2.4%.

China’s commerce ministry said the country will impose a 34% levy on all U.S. products. This matches the tariff on Chinese goods coming into the U.S. unveiled by President Donald Trump on Wednesday.

Bank stocks tumbled in the premarket as worries of a U.S. economic slowdown grew. Morgan Stanley dropped 5%, while Goldman Sachs shed 4.5%. Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase each slid more than 4%, while Wells Fargo dipped 5%.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/03/stock-market-today-live-updates.html

This is how Dotard has decided he is going to Make America Wealthy Again. By causing a global recession and alienating our trading partners. If you think China will be the last country to retaliate think again.

If this is winning we need to go on a losing streak.

 

[80zephyr]

Dude, bad timing to write that nonsense.

Dow futures drop more than 1,000 points after China retaliates with tariffs on U.S. goods

Stock futures slid Friday after China imposed new tariffs on U.S. goods in retaliation to the levies announced by the White House earlier this week.

Futures tied to the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 936 points, or 2.3%. S&P 500 futures lost 2.2%, and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 2.4%.

China’s commerce ministry said the country will impose a 34% levy on all U.S. products. This matches the tariff on Chinese goods coming into the U.S. unveiled by President Donald Trump on Wednesday.

Bank stocks tumbled in the premarket as worries of a U.S. economic slowdown grew. Morgan Stanley dropped 5%, while Goldman Sachs shed 4.5%. Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase each slid more than 4%, while Wells Fargo dipped 5%.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/03/stock-market-today-live-updates.html

This is how Dotard has decided he is going to Make America Wealthy Again. By causing a global recession and alienating our trading partners. If you think China will be the last country to retaliate think again.

If this is winning we need to go on a losing streak.

Manufacturing is a national security issue. Do we really want to be dependent on any country to supply us with what we need?

 

[22lcidw]

Yup

It is us against the world
We used to have strong economic partnerships where we team up to compete internationally

Now, Trump has declared war on the world

China does not think that way. They are not kumbaya. They laugh at many of our politicians.

 

[DonGlock26]

 

[JoeB131]

Tariffs protect industries and businesses, especially vital industries, from unfair foreign competition. Tariffs prevent huge sums of income from leaving the U.S. America became the industrial giant of the world behind the protective walls of sky-high tariffs for decades.

Protect businesses and industries from what, their own inefficiencies and greed?

Suppose a Widget Factory cannot make a widget as efficiently as China, even adding in the two—or three-month delays due to Ocean Transit. How does slapping a 30% tariff on the Chinese Widget help American Widgets, Inc.?

It doesn't. Usually, a company will look at every other option before they resource that widget - including laying off staff - because resourcing stuff is kind of a pain in the ass. You have to get first article samples, get user acceptance, do all the quality and material certifications, you often have to get a team of engineers involved.

And for the American consumer, he's screwed either way. No matter where that widget comes from, he will still pay more for it.

No, tariffs did not cause or contribute to the Great Depression--that's an old Democrat myth that was floated by FDR and his crowd to attack Republican trade policy, and it's a myth that some Libertarians misguidedly, mistakenly repeat.

Given all your other crazy historical theories, this one is only moderately crazy.

Here's why tariffs made the Great Depression so much worse. Because other countries didn't take the tariffs lying down. They imposed tariffs of their own on American goods. This led to the collapse of the whole international trade system, which was not nearly as robust in the 1930s as it is today.

Numerous nations around the world have developed their economies by using high tariffs. Think about this: If tariffs are so bad for consumers and the economy, why do so many other nations impose tariffs, including Canada, Mexico, China, Brazil, Argentina, the European Union, Japan, India, South Korea, and Taiwan?

Except Canada and Mexico entered a free trade pact with the US under NAFTA and then the USMCA. The European Union, specifically, is a Free Trade Zone, and it's the world's largest economy (Outpacing both the US and China). The UK economy has been floundering since Brexit.

I don't think any of us aspire to be Argentina or Brazil, which are economic basket cases.

I'd explain to you what China is doing right, but you'd break out into a John Birch rash. Oh, fuck it, I'll do it anyway.

While stupid ass Republicans were giving tax cuts to rich people and slashing education and poverty relief for economic prosperity that never "trickled down", the Chinese were investing in infrastructure, education, and developing enterprises. While the wealth gap in America has been increasing, China has lifted 400 million people into what we would consider the Middle Class.
This isn't an issue of "Capitalism" vs. "Communism"; the Chinese are better Capitalists than we are.

It's the difference between the efficiency of a command economy led by technocrats vs. a free-market economy led by whichever idiot can convince enough stupid people to vote for him.

 

[rightwinger]

Its a matter of national security. As a world power, we simply cannot rely on anyone else to provide us our goods. I doubt we even have the capability to produce critical products(like cell phones) any more.

What nonsense

Like it or not, we function as a global economy.
Isolationism doesn’t work

Trump is doing damage that won’t be easily fixed.
The world no longer trusts the US

 

[rightwinger]

China does not think that way. They are not kumbaya. They laugh at many of our politicians.

China is a good example

The best way to compete with China is through strong economic partnerships

Trump has destroyed those partnerships

 

[BluesLegend]

Ah, because all these countries tariff the shit out of U.S. products? Sounds like a good reason to me. It's time to bitch slap those MF'ers.

 

[80zephyr]

What nonsense

Like it or not, we function as a global economy.
Isolationism doesn’t work

Trump is doing damage that won’t be easily fixed.
The world no longer trusts the US

In a crisis situation, we NEED to be able to build our own stuff. For instance, we really don't manufacture cell phones anymore. You want to rely on China to sell them to us?

 

[DonGlock26]

China is a good example

The best way to compete with China is through strong economic partnerships

Trump has destroyed those partnerships

How does that help with the cheap Chinese goods being imported into the US?

 

[rightwinger]

How does that help with the cheap Chinese goods being imported into the US?

It helps by allowing the US and its partners to offer the best trade deals among themselves while excluding China.

How does a tariff war with China help?
Do you think the US will start building cheap TVs?

 

[22lcidw]

China is a good example

The best way to compete with China is through strong economic partnerships

Trump has destroyed those partnerships

China cares no shit on what you are spouting. We have them semi boxed in due to our allies from moving their naval fleet without tracking them from the beginning. They will take Taiwan at some point and risk nuclear devastation. We will not do anything to stop it. Then they will be free to move their growing naval arsenal without being watch as heavily.