Are tariff wars a good thing or a bad thing?
Although it can be essential to have tariffs in your economic arsenal, and they sometimes may be necessary, it seems to me to be foolish and stupid to use them like Elmer Fudd blindly scatter-shotting into the woods, damaging friend and foe alike.
All we're doing is triggering off multiple rounds of retaliation, rounds that are hurting more and more American workers and consumers. Product costs soar, factories shutter, manufacturers move, and international relationships are destabilized.
American farmers are getting the brunt of it. Some nations are simply choosing to get their agricultural products elsewhere, creating new supply lines that cut us out. When Trump's hissy fit war is over, they may just decide to keep those suppliers for good, rather than deal with the US and its mad king.
When they announced the 12 billion dollar bailout for agriculture, I don't think they quite got the reaction they were expecting. Granted, agriculture receives a lot more subsidies than many others in society (without the squealing cries of socialism), but I think this time they really didn't like the solution. They would rather have stable, dependable markets than a temporary hit of government cash. Also, keep in mind that only a very tiny percentage of American agriculture are small farms; most of it is large agribusinesses. And for those enterprises, 12 billion dollars is a spit in the wind.
It's also a mystery as to why we're attacking democratic allies as much or more than the autocratic rulers that you would think that America would be standing against. But not in Trump world. The president is free with ragging out the Prime Minister of Canada (a country where have trade surplus), and lavish praise over the likes of North Korea's Kin Jung Un and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
I'm not a devoted globalist or free trader. There does need to be some protection, some tariffs that help protect the interest of American workers. But neither am I an American Firster, willing to raise such walls and barriers that it simply winds up isolating us.
We don't need to live in a world that creates divisions and competitions that wind up enriching some nations and impoverishing others. We do live in a global economy, a shrinking world where what happens in one part of the Earth affects all the other parts. If we want to achieve a better economy for us, we need to achieve a better economy for all. Our corporate interests shouldn't be rushing to whatever parts of the world will provide the cheapest labor. We shouldn't be like President Trump, with virtually all the products he and his daughter being hypocritically made overseas.
When we make trade deals, we should not just be striving to make conditions better for American workers, we should making conditions better for the workers in the country we are trading with. Because only when we pull the whole world up, will we make things truly better,
Christians believe that the gospel message is not meant for nation states. Time and again in the Gospels, he was bringing the message to outsiders, people who caused the Pharisees and even the disciples to gasp. There are no barriers to the concept of loving your neighbor. Many other faiths express something similar.
I believe, perhaps naively, that this tariff war will end soon. A minor trade deal will be made with the European Union or similar group, and President Trump will declare victory and move on to something else, something he can tromp on in a rage, with huge crushing Godzilla like steps. Maybe he'll return to the NFL, treating civil protest rights as something he can autocratically shut down. Maybe he'll accelerate making Iran into the new boogeyman. I mean now that North Korea and Russia have moved from the Axis of Evil to best buds, what's left? Gotta demonize somebody.
The American economy is strong. It can survive a lot of mismanaged monkey business. At least that's the theory. I guess, over time, we'll find out how much it can really take.
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