There Are Better Arguments

I found the arguments that Daniel McCarthy made in his New York Times op-ed in support of Trump’s tariffs weaker than the case that should be made. Consider:

• The U. S. has the freest trade of any major economy.
• All of the major economies with which we trade, e.g. China, Japan, Germany, have significant restrictions on imports and subsidize their own industries.
• Japan and Germany both have levied tariffs against China for dumping steel and aluminum.
• We don’t have free trade with any country.
• We have carefully managed trade which necessarily fabricates winners and losers.
• The winners need to be a much broader class of Americans than at present.
• We’re going to have domestic, steel, aluminum, semiconductor, aerospace, communications, etc. industries for strategic reasons.
• That means they can either be subsidized by trade restrictions or by direct subsidies.

and that’s just getting started.

Let’s have free trade; let’s not have managed trade that we call “free” that benefits about 3% of the American people.