[motorest]

> Because tariffs hurt trade — if you charge someone an extra $4 on a $20 bottle of French wine, they _may_ still buy it, or they may buy different wine.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if the US public is even aware of this. I mean, what is the point of tarrifs other than raising the prices in the domestic market of imported goods and services? That's all they do.

The rationale from the perspective of the central government is that this will finally make foreign goods and services uncompetitive with regards to domestic alternatives, and thus will finally render them viable. But that childish assumption is based on so many absurd notions that are plainly unrealistic. The only thing that's real is the direct impact of tarrifs: increase the price of goods and services in the domestic market.

[d1sxeyes]

I think the problem is that because of the huge disparity between the cost of imported and domestic goods which has developed over decades, the choice that people face is not 'oh, now imported goods are a little more expensive, I will instead buy American', it's 'now I can't afford to buy anything at all.'

You have to get more money into the hands of the consumers in order to be able to implement something like this.