Understanding The Tariff

3m · Shared with Public The tariff is completely misunderstood by most and misrepresented by Trumps antagonists. Consider politics as a tool box full of political actions. The tariff is one of those tools that levels the playing field. Free trade is a mirage created by the first mass producer, the English. Having discovered methods to mass produce well before other Europeans it was natural to want to protect the lead as other countries played catch up, as they played catch up they eventually caught up. Then, to protect their own industries they could place tariffs on goods from other countries. This act was called protection, which it was The new United States that produced very little could place tariffs wholesale which they did. They did it because they were learning and had higher costs for their goods thus placing tariffs to give their goods the advantage thus making their goods less expensive than the tariffed goods. This was still true in my childhood of the nineteen forties and fifties. Then as the tariffs were removed the exploitation of China and the third world began, imports were cheapened and drove the higher priced American goods out of the market. This produced the rust belt as the high cost of American products closed manufacturing down. However Americans were getting foreign goods cheaper and didn't bother to think about it while all the work benefits they got drove American products sky high. Now to correct this imbalance President Trump has placed tariffs on foreign goods high enough to make American made goods less expensive than imports. Hopefully jobs will now flow back into the country, however the prices of goods will rise to American standards of living as though we had never used free trade. It's all inevitable.