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by tracker1 123 days ago
How do you feel about allowing the import of goods from nations using slavery to create those goods? Would you be okay with a foreign nation undercutting domestic production as a strategy to destroy your industry to control a market?

That's aside from my position that most taxes should be at a point of trade/exchange.
3 comments
SideQuark 123 days ago
The question was for a specific example, not some moral vague strawman.

The question is a good one, right to the heart of the claim. Without specific examples, especially ones that are not post selected (i.e., pick all tariffs at a point in time and see of that was beneficial), it is silly to claim tariffs are useful when there is ample evidence of when they cause significant harm to the economy.

So, have a case for a timepoint where the set of tariffs ended up being demonstrably beneficial for an economy?

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dlisboa 123 days ago
You have to see there's a hefty dose of hypocrisy in this, right? American might has been used, quite extensively, to impose unfavorable conditions to local companies in their own soil in favor of American companies. Multiple American multi national corporations have used exploitative labor conditions in underdeveloped countries to prop up their own margins. The American government has used multiple coercive tools to de-industrialize many nations and has, in the 21st century, an explicitly paternalistic attitude towards the Western Hemisphere with literal stealing of their resources.

I understand and even respect when someone says "I'm American so I wish to maintain the status quo where the US can undercut other nations but they can't undercut us". But if there's some rose tinted view of how the US is actually the morally aggrieved one, I just can't bear it.

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sarchertech 123 days ago
You’re responding to a different question than what was asked.

The question wasn’t about American hypocrisy, it was can you imagine a situation where tariffs are potentially good.

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SmirkingRevenge 123 days ago
You can just ban imports from people who use sweatshops, or hash that out in trade agreements.

Because Trump is so fixated on tariffs, it's centered tariffs in too many conversations on these trade topics. People have developed a kind of tunnel vision here.

There are other kinds of policy levers besides tariffs for securing supply chains, promoting domestic manufacturers, or cutting out businesses that rely on slave labor from international trade. Most of them are cheaper and more effective than tariffs.

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