If you’re familiar with Patrick Buchanan, you won’t be surprised to know that his latest column is a ringing defense of tariffs.
An excerpt:
“Trade wars are not won, only lost,’ warns Sen. Jeff Flake.
But this is ahistorical nonsense.
The U.S. relied on tariffs to convert from an agricultural economy in 1800 to the mightiest manufacturing power on earth by 1900.
Bismarck’s Germany, born in 1871, followed the U.S. example, and swept past free trade Britain before World War I.
Does Senator Flake think Japan rose to post-war preeminence through free trade, as Tokyo kept U.S. products out, while dumping cars, radios, TVs and motorcycles here to kill the industries of the nation that was defending them. Both Nixon and Reagan had to devalue the dollar to counter the predatory trade policies of Japan.
Since Bush I, we have run $12 trillion in trade deficits, and, in the first decade in this century, we lost 55,000 factories and 6,000,000 manufacturing jobs.
Does Flake see no correlation between America’s decline, China’s rise, and the $4 trillion in trade surpluses Beijing has run up at the expense of his own country?
The hysteria that greeted Trump’s idea of a 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum suggest that restoring this nation’s economic independence is going to be a rocky road.
In 2017, the U.S. ran a trade deficit in goods of almost $800 billion, $375 billion of that with China, a trade surplus that easily covered Xi Jinping’s entire defense budget.
Read the rest here.
One Comment
While I agree with much of what Buchanan is saying I think it’s a less effective national strategy to try and go back and protect many of the older industries. We need to protect Chips, AI, EV cars, Driver-less Transport, etc. (Of course Trump needs to win Ohio and Michigan again. Not taking sides, it’s his need.)
I’m not necessarily a fan of all the new things but they are the future. It would be much easier to put tariffs on new technology and industries as they come into being than to go back. We are the world’s leader in chips (especially), AI (though Europe is at it hard), driver-less cars, Internet of Things, block chain, and many other cutting edge 21st century tech. These are what we need to protect MOST. And doing so would gain the support of our darling west coast leftist technologist masters. They, lefty techies, often complain about the trade practices of other nations and the need to protect our new industries.
Some random thoughts on the matter.