Trump, Abusing Tariffs

I DIDN'T TAKE ECONOMICS in high school or college. Finally, when I was well into my doctoral program in history, I took Econ One Oh One, a summer school class, somehow got overwhelmed by the sheer amount of material we convered, and ended up making a "C" in the class, embarrassingly. The only positive part was that the other ten students in the class were beautiful girls, and the professor was gay. Not only that, but his last name was "Gay", and we used a textbook he had written. Dr.Gay told us that he had never heard of an economist who liked tariffs. My experience has taught me that he was quite correct, and I can see why. Tariffs are nothing other than government action intended to discourage economic activity, and in capitalism, discouraging economic activity is always a no no. Actually, I encountered one and only one economist who seemed to favor tariffs. Ravi Batra, who was at SMU for decades, wrote a seminal monograph titled "The Pooring of America", in which he blamed the lack of tariff barriers for low wages of American workers, tariff barriers which, according to Batra, could have easily kept out of the country the glut of cheap foreign manufactured products which at different times do indeed seem to have suppressed the prosperity of some American companies, business sectors, and workers. What economists and experts in other areas do seem to agree on regarding tariffs is that the are, or should be, a very carefully, selectively utilized economic tool, used to deal with specific, clearly delineated circumstances. The primary purpose is to protect a fledgling, domestic industry against strong outside competition from imports from established, powerful producers. If, for example, your country and its economy is young, like, say, the United States in the nineteenth century, and you want to develop, say, your own steel industry, then you place an import tax, a tariff, on all imported steel. Another fact we can all agree on, on owuld think, is that for an American president to apply tariffs broadly, wildly, on every country and every industry in the world, and to do so unpredictably, chaotically, whimsically, is not only a bad idea, its dangerous, irrepsonsible, dmggiand to all concerned, especially the global economy. Any Americna president considering a pro tariff policy should first form an advisory group of economic experts, and use thtm for consultation and advice. Also, of course, it is Congress, not the presidnet, which has the powr to initiate tariffs, according to the United States constitution. But never do you or should you overuse tariffs as an instrument of economic or retaliatory policy. Once again, as seemingly always, Donald Trump is using his power in an illegal, criminal way. Singlehandedly imposing, then removing, then reimposing and changing tariffs on all countries and thousands of manufactured products like some drunken stock market speculator is utterly, totally insane, as only Donald Trump can do insanity...Canada promoted a video of Ronald Reagan, who disliked tariffs like the rest of us, expressing his dislike of them, in direct contradiction of current Trump and Republican policy. Trump, of course, went ballistic, and either cut off all trade with Canada, or declared war on them and launched an invasion, or maybe both. Trump has accomplished the seemingly impossible; he has ignited a trade war with our closest ally, and very nearly, a more serious diplomatic war. Amazing. We appear to be headed for several more years of economic and political chaos and turmoil under Trump. Hang on for dear life.