"Tariff is the most beautiful word in the dictionary," says Donald Trump, who made many promises throughout the 2024 presidential race to raise the cost of imports from China, Mexico, and Canada—America's three biggest trading partners.
Are Trump's tariffs a good idea or a terrible one? And is the era of free trade coming to a close?
Those are among the topics of this week’s Reason Interview, which features Dartmouth economist Douglas Irwin, author of Trade Policy Disaster: Lessons from the 1930s and Free Trade under Fire. Nobody knows the history of trade policy better than Doug.
We talk about his various proposals for his second term and the negative impacts of the tariffs that Trump actually levied in his first term. According to the Tax Foundation’s Erica D. York,
The Trump administration imposed nearly $80 billion worth of new taxes on Americans by levying tariffs on thousands of products valued at approximately $380 billion in 2018 and 2019, amounting to one of the largest tax increases in decades.
It’s worth noting that Joe Biden kept many of those tariffs in place—and that this century’s other presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, also trafficked in protectionism. Indeed, one of the main things we discuss is why free trade is always under attack despite its massive and generally agreed-upon overall benefits. The irony isn’t lost on Doug, whose Free Trade Under Fire is now in its 5th edition (it was originally published in 2002 in the wake of violent protests in Seattle over the creation of the World Trade Organization).
Here’s the topic list. Below that is a link to the original page for all this at Reason, the world’s leading source of politics, culture, and ideas from a libertarian perspective.
0:00—Introduction
1:13—The fight for free trade
3:06—Donald Trump: "Tariff Man"
5:44—How tariffs affect consumers
9:03—Trump's political motivations behind tariffs
12:33—U.S. steel industry
15:15—The effect of protectionism on jobs
18:39—Automation, industry, and agriculture
25:40—China's protectionist policies
26:58—Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act
33:59—Free trade debates of the Ronald Regan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton eras
38:41—China's impact on markets
40:24—Populist arguments against free trade
44:49—The narrative about the baby formula shortage is wrong.
51:29—"Made in China" vs. "assembled in China"
52:41—The "Buy American" fallacy
If you like this episode or this Substack more generally, please subscribe and share! And if you live in the New York City area, please come out on January 21 for a live taping of The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie, when I’ll be talking with
and David Bier about the libertarian case for more immigration. Tickets are $15 and include beer, wine, soda, food—and fantastic conversation. Details here.Thanks.
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