No shit.
This is literally in the first paragraph of every economics textbook when they talk about tariffs.
My friend just got into a fight with some MAGATs on facebook about why we need things like civics education so we know what we’re voting for.
You’ll be shocked to learn the MAGATs called him a communist for daring to want to educate them. They don’t even want to open the textbook let alone read it.
No, the first page is how it introduces inefficiencies into a supply/demand equilibrium, resulting in a lower quantity supplied and at a higher price.
No one who every studies economics, even in passing, would even consider another country paying a tarrif for something you buy. The concept is just… what?
Yeah, the, misguided, idea is that the increase in price from imports will drive domestic production, of those things, as the high prices reduce demand, and cut into profit margins. This used to be something that was a sensible assumption of what would happen. However the contemporary world has far too much infrastructure for tariffs to truly work like that any longer. It will, usually, be cheaper to increase the costs for the tariffs, than to restructure back to domestic production.
It could drive up domestic production, however there us a good reason we import, which is similar to your last point.
Bad example, but its the same reason you “import” Mexican workers - their skills and work ethic, along with willingness to work long hours for low wages. You aren’t going to get hundreds of thousands of Americans to decide to work in a sweat shop, or on farms, or doing handyman work for the same wages.
I was going to mention the low cost of a life in China, and the lax H&S, ethic and environmental regulations, but America is trending that way too.
How do you get by in life without reading? I mean, don’t you have to know what the symbols on clocks mean to tell time?
And you don’t need a textbook to understand how the very basics of business work. You know, the thing people seem convinced he understands? A fucking toddler has more knowledge than Trump. The United States of America doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together
They heard lower taxes, and simply misunderstood that tariffs are another form of taxation.
