[Jim W N]

Well, I don't know if you were joking, but you may not think my views on tariff are "balanced."

I am, like Milton Friedman was, an economic libertarian. Historically, tariffs as a penalty have been a miserable failure, hurting mostly the consumer and the country that imposes the tariff. Amazingly, most that discuss economic have a real tough time with historical fact because history is clearly on the side of laissez-faire free-market economics.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

If tariffs are such a failure;

Why is China now rich and powerful?

[who_would_fardels_bear]

I only responded to you because you were the first person with a comment.

I believe that tariffs can and should be used on a case-by-case basis as an efficient means to get our trading partners to follow agreed upon rules of trade.

I believe that a laissez-faire free-market economy as proposed by some purists is a logical impossibility, so trying to create an economy, for instance, that has no tariffs is a goal that is not worth trying to attain.

Samuelson makes a great point that China is not abiding by its international trading agreements, and that one method for encouraging them to do so would be targeted tariffs.

He also makes the good point that this would not amount to the same level or breadth of tariffs that were imposed leading up to and during the Great Depression so we would not be repeating history.

There is some elbow room for well crafted tariffs.