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Alexander Scipio's avatar

The problem with this type of anti-tariff argument is that it ignores second-order effects. A good produced more efficiently elsewhere may cost less than producing that good here. If my job is exported to produce that good, however, I have no money to buy that less-expensive, more-efficiently-produced good. Both sides lose: the manufacturer of the good and me.

A $100 manufacture that I cannot buy because my job was offshored is of less value to me and the community than a $125 manufacture made in my community that I can buy with wages from my onshore job. The manufacture of that good provides a paycheck and ability to pay for groceries and a mortgage, which allows grocery and banking jobs as it acts as a multiplier.

If we want a first-world country, we must pay first-world wages. If we must tariff incoming good to provide those first-world wages to our communities - enabling jobs, family formation, education, infrastructure… then tariffs are the right answer. Looking at tariffs only as a cost is to ignore the jobs and society we must have to ensure our own future - rather than just a cheaper good we can’t afford and that siphons income out of our family, community, country.

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Mrs Bucket's avatar

China doesn't sell us cheap goods produced under shocking conditions for most of their workers to be kind to us, the policy has been economic war for decades and we've swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Amazon etc are simply helping China in the wealth/skills transfer from West to East. There is only one eventual outcome.

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