Donald Trump proudly claimed that “I am a Tariff Man!”, falsely suggesting that imports impoverish us:

Mr. Trump and Mr. Bernie Sanders are in unity: protecting industries from foreign competitors is the way to create a great economy (although even Mr. Sanders understood the folly of starting a trade war with Canada, strongly disagreeing with Mr. Trump on that specific). For just one example, Mr. Trump’s tariff on Canadian timber increased costs for new housing in America, with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) suggesting almost $10k in increased costs due to the tariff. Yet although supposedly Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are in total opposition to each other, that is not the case on many policies. Mr. Biden has maintained the majority of Mr. Trump’s tariffs (such as on China) which raise import prices for Americans (both producers and consumers). While Mr. Biden has modified the structure of Mr. Trump’s steel tariffs on Europe (basically creating a quota for steel imports that can avoid the tariff), he still maintains the basic outcome that we have to pay a lot more for steel than we would otherwise. Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden say they want to make America great again, and make the economy work for all, yet their actions are to Make America Poorer Again. Should Mr. Trump be reelected, he has promised to put a 10% tax increase (via tariff) on every import into America. And he has promised to tax China’s exports to the U.S. at 60%. It’s easy to be down on China (for good reason) but that doesn’t change the reality that many of the things we buy are made in China and now our costs will go up massively when this policy is implemented. Let’s just understand that de-globalization has its costs, and we will be poorer–significantly so. And my warning to Donald Trump is the same warning that I gave to Mr. Biden when he insisted on this inflationary spending: The American people may be with you on what you are doing (increase public spending for Biden, attack China for Trump) when they don’t understand the costs, but you can be certain that when prices rise dramatically they will blame you–and rightly so. Conservatives who correctly attribute the prior inflation to Biden’s bloated spending better be ready for the higher prices they will be responsible for if we further engage in a global trade war. Tariffs are taxes–pure and simple. But they are worse than just taxes. Tariffs subsidize the economic losers of the economy, while punishing the economic winners. To the extent that tariffs change the pattern of production and consumption, they redirect capital from efficient producers to inefficient producers. Guess which industries pay more? You guessed it, the export industries, which are punished by fewer sales in a trade war. So instead of raising wages, we’ll lower wages. But make no mistake–some wages will go up (in the inefficient, politically powerful special interest group), and that is the point. Both Biden and Trump like picking winners and losers, they just have a different set of special interests they want to appeal to. Maybe you’re happy if they’re picking you as the winner. But they are making all of us poorer.

Don Boudreaux and Phil Gramm have a great op-ed written a month ago for the WSJ, and is now free of the paywall. You can see their detailed review of some of the failures of the Trump tariffs here–I highly encourage you to do so. Let’s not Make America Poorer Again. It’s time to flush the Biden/Trump tariff policies and demand that the next administration make us free again–free to trade with whoever we want, not who the politicians want.

Edit Update: National Review just posted an update on the Steel/Aluminum tariffs. One of the salient points:

The U.S. International Trade Commission found a brief increase in metal output in 2020 and 2021, but that increase of $2.2 billion was overwhelmed by a $3.5 billion decline in output by metal-consuming industries. “So overall, ITC’s estimate was that between 2017 and 2021, the tariffs had increased the metals production relative to a no-tariff scenario, but left the overall U.S. manufacturing sector a bit smaller,” Gresser writes.

Since then, U.S. steel and aluminum consumption has declined even though the economy has grown. “From 2012 to 2017, the U.S. economy used an average of 100 million tons of steel and 5.23 million tons of aluminum per year,” Gresser writes. “The 2023 U.S. economy, though about 10% bigger in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars than that of 2017, used only 93 million tons of steel and 4 million tons of aluminum — respectively 7% less and 20% less than before.”

The kicker from Gresser: “Though imports remain close to the levels the Commerce Department’s 2018 reports envisioned, U.S. metal production has fallen back to pre-tariff levels.”