I’ve explained this to you before, but you were too dense to understand: the Founding Fathers saw tariffs as a way to raise revenue for the federal government. Not to create or “save” jobs, as you are arguing on this very thread.
“I’ve explained this to you before, but you were too dense to understand: the Founding Fathers saw tariffs as a way to raise revenue for the federal government. Not to create or “save” jobs, as you are arguing on this very thread.”
It should also be noted that “free trade” to the founding fathers was not being able to import goods “free of tariffs” but merely the ability to ship goods to any nation that would buy them or import goods from any other nation. At the time of the founding European nations were constantly at war with each other. When England was at war with France or Spain the American English colonies would be prohibited from trading at all with the nation at war with England. To the colonists “free trade” meant the freedom to trade with any country no matter who it was allied with or at war with.
High tariffs and duties were used successfully to fund the federal government and to protect domestically produced products from foreign competition for more than 100 years. American merchants traded without government restrictions on which nation they traded with, but they paid high tariffs and duties when they brought goods into the country. The nation’s economy grew rapidly and the US became the strongest industrial power on the planet under this policy of free trade with all nations and high tariffs. Jobs and prosperity resulted from this economic growth.
Over the last 20 years we’ve done the opposite. Through trade agreements we’ve perverted the notion of “free trade” to “duty free trade”. We charge importers zero or minimal tariffs for the privilege of access to our markets. Other nations have overtly subsidized exports to the US in an overt attempt to undercut prices in the US market and steal market share from US domestic producers. As a result our domestic manufacturers have closed facilities and discarded workers. We have traded the economic prosperity and jobs that come from healthy tariffs and trading with all nations to the loss of industry and jobs that comes from eliminating tariffs and allowing subsidized foreign manufacturers to put domestic manufacturing out of business.
The deindustrialization of the US economy was a conscious policy supported by both political parties. The elites of this country chose to provide capital investment and jobs to foreign nations at the expense of the American people. This policy needs to be ended.