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The rest of the world doesn't do it, with the exceptions of India and Brazil. In those two cases, yes, they're being stupid. Here is the latest official WTO stats for effectively applied trade-weighted tariff (WITS) for the top 10 countries by GDP - most data seems to be sourced from 2022 reports as far as I can tell:
As of now, the average trade-weighted tariff for the US is sitting at about 16%.
So no, this is very much not a standard policy, which is why I'd be interested to see someone sincerely defend it as a good policy rather than as a way to own the mean libs by burning down the house we all live in.
... but Americans do benefit from free trade? Can you find me some examples of business owners or manufacturers in the United States who are happy about the tariffs? Because as far as I can tell nobody with skin in the game is very happy. Happy to be proven wrong here.
Then you can join the tankies over in the "deeply unserious people" corner. "Destroy the current order, I'm sure somebody has a better plan" has not historically been a successful strategy.
Realistically? Make sure I have non-dollar-denominated assets, stay within my decidedly not destroyed blue enclave, and be sad as I stop being able to take pride in my country. As they say, there's a lot of ruin in a nation.
I disagree with WITS as measure: it doesn't matter if dates and feta cheese are duty-free if it's averaged out with protectionist tariffs for trucks and other heavy industry. Tariffs aren't even the whole story when it comes to protectionism. There are subsidies, designated country of origin, etc...
But that's beside the point. There are many Americans who, have, in fact not benefitted from free trade, from the free movement of peoples. I have this bloody shirt of three innocent people killed by a trucker u-turning on the highway with his truck. The countless dead of working-class communities who were eaten alive by fentanyl and despair. The general collapse of the affordability of housing. I could go on and on.
The old social contract is already dead. Why cling to an order that gives nothing for my compliance and has no resistance to offer for my defiance?
I expect the business owners and manufacturers to be unhappy about the tariffs: their profits are made at the expense of the people and communities they live in. Skin in the game is a good model of demonstrating sincerity, provided that access to the table is possible. It hasn't been for a very long time. Well, now our problem is your problem. The red-browns, one way or another, will come for the little urban enclaves eventually. Whether it be putting soldiers in your streets or giving you bloody shaves by taxation, the end result is the same. Pay up, liberal. What are you going to do, write an angry letter to your congressman?
It didn't work for us: why would it work for you?
It's not so fun when you're the number on the spreadsheet, is it?
What metric do you prefer?
This has to do with tariffs how? Would the truck have had better sightlines if it were American-made?
This does not seem like a problem tariffs solve.
This does not seem like a problem tariffs solve.
Because the rumors of the death of the old social contract are exaggerated, and because you want to build a world that is better rather than worse for your children. If you do want to build a better world for your children, but just disagree what "better" looks like, then sure, let us discuss specifics. Particularly the specifics around tariffs, which I note you have still not given a concrete defense of. But if you are so far gone that you care only for the suffering of your opponents, if you have no positive vision for the world, then I agree that there is no value in talking to you. It's not like either of us is particularly influential.
You're glowing. Might want to get that checked out.
I mean, I'm already a number on the spreadsheet. So are you. Such is life in the modern analyzed world. I don't think there is any time or country in history I would prefer to live in than current America, even given the problems we have now. I expect, absent a civilization-ending catastrophe, this will remain true. I am worried that something precious is being lost, but the "something precious" is "the crown jewel of the world" and not "a serviceable nation" - I expect the decline to look like what Britain has gone through.
Anyway, are you planning to defend the tariffs as being good at accomplishing some specific concrete policy goal that you care about accomplishing or no?
As captain Haddock would say...
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I take it this means you are not actually up for showing me why there's a partisan side under which tariffs are sane and well thought out and are actually expected to achieve some specific goal? And you didn't actually mean it when you said
Or are you saying "the point is to break shit because I'm mad, I don't actually care about outcomes". In which case please speak directly into the microphone.
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