Isn’t it a lot better when President Donald Trump just tweets what he thinks rather than implement policy?
On Thursday, the president informed U.S. aluminum and steel executives that the federal government will slap new tariffs on imports of these products, MarketWatch reports.
Moving forward, the White House will establish a 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.
Why is this a bad idea? See: Donald Trump wants to raise tariffs on aluminum, steel imports
Presidents never learn. President George W. Bush did it on steel. President Barack Obama did it on tire. Now President Trump is doing it to a diverse array of commodities. Those lousy protectionists…
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Fair? More like fare. It’s what you pay to get on the bus because you can no longer afford a car.
Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley probably did many things in their careers, but history only remembers them for the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 which remains today as the prime example of the damage that protectionism can do. Protectionism is the progressivism of fools. Gandhi was a great statesman but a horrible economist. Just as the ignorant in the USA argue that American workers who earn $15 per hour should not have to compete with Chinese workers who make $2 per hour, Gandhi thought that Indian workers should not have to compete with American and European workers who have the benefit of modern machines. As a result India adopted protectionism. In 1947 the per capita income of India was similar to countries such a South Korea. By 1977 the per capita income and standard of living in South Korea was many times that of India. India has since largely abandoned protectionism and has benefited immensely from free trade. Just as David Ricardo proved would be the case when he developed the concept of comparative advantage…”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4148256