Hate to pick nits, but what’s ‘conservative’ is what’s in the Constitution. The power to raise tariffs is in there.
I believe the poster hit the nail on the head. Too many on our side of the aisle willing to pull the entire works down around us trying to get back at the unions. The unions, meanwhile have only become more powerful by burrowing into the public sector.
Classic case of cutting off our nose to spite our face. We’ll need an economy to rebuild at some point.
“The power to raise tariffs is in there”.
This statement, while true, doesn’t exactly apply to this circumstance. The reason tariffs are in the Constitution is a matter of Federal preemption, so that there is a coherent national trade policy. Previously the colonies had their own trade policies with each other, as well as the rest of the world.
Protectionism is a generally political knee jerk reaction to protecting industries with organized labor or well-connected business owners, practiced by both parties. It unfortunately intensified and elongated the Great Depression. (Even with this the idiots reelected FDR, which leaves me gloomy about the Demagogue in Chief getting reelected)
What is Conservative is to lower federal corporate tax rates, fair treatment for income earned overseas, right to work status, and reasonable, not restrictive, environmental and industrial regulation. Lastly, China has artificially made their country more profitable in which to do business as a result of keeping their currency low, which makes exports from China profitable.