Donald Trump proudly proclaims himself Tariff Man, and whether Ms. Harris calls herself Tariff Woman or not, the Harris/Biden Administration left most of Mr. Trump’s tariffs in place, so she is still a Tariff Woman. Writing in the WSJ, Michael Levy helpfully notes (HT Cafe Hayek):

Tariffs are fees charged on goods imported by U.S. companies. These increased costs typically result in higher prices for consumers. The hope is that the increase in the relative costs of imports compared with goods produced domestically will lead to a shift toward domestically produced goods. But the benefits of any shift are more than offset by inefficiencies, the higher costs to domestic consumers, and the foreign retaliation that usually occurs. Frequently the result is slower global trade, which isn’t good for the U.S.

In 2018 Mr. Trump imposed tariffs of 25% on steel imports and 10% on aluminum imports, declaring, “Trade wars are good and easy to win.” China retaliated in various ways and Mr. Trump’s promise that manufacturing jobs would suddenly flood back to the U.S. proved worthless. Global trade and production declined and U.S. manufacturing jobs flattened. Tariffs violate the simple but sound law of comparative advantage. It may be wise to ban trade in sensitive goods related to national security, but Mr. Trump’s fear of bilateral trade deficits with foreign partners is simply economic nonsense.

But tariffs are far worse than simply ineffective, or that they are effectively a tax, for two main reasons. First, they are a tax by unproductive producers/workers on consumers and productive producers. Tariff people are not for workers, they are for particular types of workers, those that are in companies that are losers in the marketplace, and come at the expense of the winners of the marketplace. They take scarce resources and apply them in less efficient, and therefore less remunerative ways than their alternative. But this leads to the worse result, higher wages come in the growing industries; the declining wages come in declining industries. Everybody sees the impact on workers that lose in the marketplace, as the plant packs up and moves to Mexico (or is replaced w/Chinese producers). Few people are able to see the necessary corollary, the loss of jobs in productive export industries, because those job losses typically come from the loss of the jobs that would otherwise have been created. Jobs that would have offered higher pay. And we’re not just talking trading relatively lower paying manufacturing jobs for relatively higher paying service sector jobs, although that’s true too. Despite what you hear, the U.S. is still a global manufacturing powerhouse. But what we manufacture now tend to be high valued added very technologically sophisticated capital equipment, often in export to other countries. As the linked CATA report shows, U.S. manufacturing by itself would be the eighth largest economy in the world!

So right down the road from me in Evandale OH is the headquarters of GE Aerospace. They have union manufacturing jobs that make jet engines for most of the aircraft manufacturers in world.* AEBG and their union workers benefit greatly from free trade and being able to export to the rest of the world. Without us taking other countries imports, they have no dollars to be able to buy our exports. And this is just one of innumerable examples I could (and will**) share. So don’t listen to the politicians talk about how they long for the workers of yesteryear to come back. We’ve got better jobs with higher pay now, and let’s not let Tariff Man or Tariff Woman take them away.

* I used to work w/GE Aerospace (Aircraft Engine Business Group at the time) engineers in my early AF days testing the F-101 and F-110 engines, which had essentially the same core as the CF6 used in most commercial aircraft. At the time, GE dominated the world in aircraft engines but still probably has close to 30% of the world market.

** I plan on exploring this more in-depth in the coming months. Especially since conservative leftists are ardent industrial policy supporters.