The other day I read a Wall Street Journal piece about EU tariffs on U.S. goods that (thankfully) never came to be. It reminded me about the Trump administration’s departure from U.S. policy for the last few decades which generally aimed to increase free trade. The Biden administration has yet to make any strong changes to trade policy, and in the name of “protecting American jobs” they will likely keep many tariffs in place. Obviously, any changes to government policy can disrupt markets, so, in the short run, the best way to keep things rolling is to keep everything the same. However, tariffs are generally* a bad thing, and I think now is the perfect time to peal them back like never before.

To start off, (in case you haven’t noticed) things are really weird in the world still. We’re dealing with a variety of supply chain disruptions, rebounding demand, newfound inflation, dogecoin, ever shifting COVID rules, vaccinations, etc. Since things are chaotic, now is a great time to roll things back. I think this will help us especially to overcome massive supply chain disruptions by introducing more goods into the pool. While there will be some side effects, mostly to the steel and aluminum industries that have experienced so much upheaval due to changing tariffs for a few years now. To overcome a variety of supply chain changes, opening up greater access to outside goods will protect Americans (and other recovering countries) from issues created by COVID disruptions.

Another good reason to lift tariffs now is to combat inflation. Because we’ve cut production on a significant amount of goods and pumped a load of new money into the economy through easy loans (some too easy), stimulus checks, added unemployment benefits, and expansionary monetary policy, there will continue to be an inflationary problem until we shut down the money fountain and start producing again. This will not be an easy problem to overcome, especially as money continues to flow from on high. However, opening up a greater level of free trade with the world will help alleviate some of inflationary pressure.

Lastly, I think it is important to consider the rest of the world’s ability to recover. The world poverty rate is increasing for the first time in 20 years! Freeing up trade on our end will allow other countries to enjoy the benefits of an expedited economic recovery as well. Christians have a responsibility to the poor, and one of the best and simplest things we can do is trade with those in need. By granting the poor entrance into our economic world, we give them their first steps into the world of choice that we enjoy. This is our chance to leverage the crisis to help those in the greatest need in the world. Pushing for this sort of reform will help everyone recover faster, and many can end up better off than before. We cannot erase the suffering of the last year, but we can dust ourselves off and attempt to make things right. For example, agricultural tariffs and subsidies in the US do much more harm to the world’s poor than to help US farmers. Now is our chance to revisit bad practices and policies to make the world a better place for everyone.

*Certainly, we can insist on certain tariffs for national security reasons. Typically though, tariffs are a bad thing. I have written a post about the zero sum game, and you can learn more about that here. It touches on tariffs.