The Failed Promise of Tariffs
Protectionism and tariffs are in the news again--what with the signing of TPP and with President Trump about to impose US tariffs upon aluminium and steel. As always there is a lot of silly uninformed posturing that rises up to insist that free trade is BAD and that protectionist trade policies are good "for our people". Both assertions are twaddle and do not stand up to serious scrutiny.
To put the cat amongst the pigeons, we are reproducing a debate on the issue. It was reproduced in Patterico. The post was entitled, The Argument in Favor of Unilaterally Abolishing All Tariffs. It was introduced as follows:
One argument I hear a lot from people who support Trump’s proposed tariffs goes like this: “I’m generally a free trader, but when other countries subsidize their products or impose tariffs on ours, why shouldn’t the U.S. retaliate?” This post is designed to respond to exactly that argument.
One of my favorite economists, Don Boudreaux, had an Oxford-style debate last November in which he defended this proposition: “The U.S. government should unilaterally abolish all tariffs and duties on imports and all subsidies to exports, thereby making all reciprocal trade agreements with other countries unnecessary.” To get the most out of Boudreaux’s arguments, you should watch the entire debate:
I’ll summarize some of his arguments from the first half of the debate here, both to whet your appetite, and to provide some arguments for those who don’t have 80 minutes to devote to the debate. (Boudreaux won the debate, meaning more people came to his side than to his opponent’s side.)
