If tariff’s are meant to protect a local industry they do that by raising the cost of lower priced foreign goods. It a $10,000 item has $1,500 added it will cost the buyer $1,500. If a locally made item costs $11,000 and is inferior to an imported $10,000 item and the tariff of $1,500 is added to the foreign made item then the better made $10,000 imported item will cost the buyer more than the inferior $10,00 item so the buyer will suffer from buying an inferior $11,000 item. Tariff’s are never a good idea because they are simply a tax by a different name. Taxes are never good. They are tolerated because there is no alternative. OTOH if there is no locally made item to buy a tariff simply increases the cost to a buyer. Higher prices are never good. Either way a tariff is always a bad idea. It a foreign product is less expensive it deserves to be bought instead of the government wrongly tipping the scale to favor an inferior or more expensive product.
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