Trump’s Tariffs: A Bold Strategy That Undercuts the Critics
As we discussed in Thursday’s Breitbart Business Digest, Donald Trump took the stage this week at the Economic Club of Chicago and made a clear, unapologetic case for tariffs.
While the media has focused on Trump’s colorful claims about his love for tariffs—“To me the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff,’” for example—few have noticed the bold innovation behind his trade strategy. It amounts to a revolution in thinking about trade that completely upends the core arguments against tariffs.
“The higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States and build a factory,” Trump said to an approving crowd.
It wasn’t just applause for Trump the politician—it was recognition that his tariff strategy has the potential to shake up the stale economic orthodoxy of the past 40 years.
Critics have long painted tariffs as economic self-harm, arguing they stifle innovation, protect bloated industries, and hurt consumers. But Trump’s tariffs—far from being the crude, special-interest motivated protectionism of yesteryear—represent something new and bold. He’s using them as leverage, a tool to compel foreign companies to invest in America, creating a more competitive and vibrant domestic economy. The very arguments that have been trotted out against tariffs for decades look flimsy when you understand the real game plan here: tariffs that don’t close off competition but bring it home. more
I admit that probably a couple million folks know more about tariffs than I do, but I always thought tariffs were a sop to the unions.
Inefficiencies in American manufacturing are largely the fault of unions, and their stranglehold on production. Wages, working conditions, even hiring practices are decided by the unions and fly in the face of free markets making these determinations.
And unless these new factories that Trump wants built here are home-based in right-to-work states, the unions will move in and take over, making those factories just as inefficient and cost-prohibitive.
Make AMERICA someplace companies want to invest in and stay in and the issues resolve themselves. I am tired of spoiled children getting upset that companies leave, when they will do NOTHING to eliminate the conditions that encouraged them to leave. Tariffs impact EVERY consumer negatively. Make America a place where people want to do business, and products will be cheaper. It is the fact that every 4 years everyone fears “regime change” that causes this problem. The fundamental problem is GOVERNMENT, and its power over our economy and our lives. GET RID OF GOVERNMENT and the problems solve themselves. Nobody has the COURAGE to consider that truth however.
Companies don’t just leave. They are driven away by taxes & regulations. (I heard it somewhere. Maybe on Quinn & Rose)