How America Learned to Love Tariffs
A tariff makes something more expensive and thus less attractive to would-be consumers, who will either buy something similar at a lower price—be it made by a domestic producer or another foreign producer—or forgo the purchase. Tariffs can be put in place for many reasons, be it to protect firms that could otherwise not hold their own against impor
... See moreRichard Haass • The World
Americans consume far too large a share of what they produce, and so they must import the difference from abroad. In this case, tariffs (properly implemented) would have the opposite effect of Smoot-Hawley. By taxing consumption to subsidize production, modern-day tariffs would redirect a portion of U.S. demand toward increasing the total amount of
... See moreMichael Pettis • How Tariffs Can Help America
These tariffs would still come with domestic risks. But for economists to suggest that the effect of tariffs in 1930 must be the same as today only shows how muddled most economists are about trade. The real lesson of Smoot-Hawley is not that the United States cannot benefit from tariffs, but rather that persistent surplus economies should not impl
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