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Comment by darksaints | Hacker News Reader

The best (if not only) valid argument for tariffs is that they can be used to negotiate lower tariffs. Because tariffs only serve to reduce trade, which mathematically is suboptimal for economic output, and has been recognized as such by nearly every economist since David Ricardo.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump doesn't agree with that. Or his handlers don't. Not that the distinction matters anymore. The diplomatic and trade relations that we are destroying right now can't just be fixed by electing a new President. This is the US's Suez Crisis...we are no longer a world leader.

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> which mathematically is suboptimal, and has been recognized as such by nearly every economist since David Ricardo.

That requires some initial assumptions that simply aren't true. Tariffs can and do serve a vital role to protect a country from one with lower standards of living (eg taken to an extreme, consider trade between county A where slavery is illegal and country B where it isn't)

> That requires some initial assumptions that simply aren't true.

There are certainly assumptions, but those assumptions are reasonable in nearly every possibly scenario the US has ever encountered.

> Tariffs can and do serve a vital role to protect a country from one with lower standards of living

Protect how? Protect them from lower priced goods? Sorry, but this "idea" originates from mercantilist thought and has been thoroughly dismantled and discredited. Even when one country is less wealthy and less productive, both countries benefit from expanded trade. This is Comparative Advantage...literally Econ 101.

Economics is a social science and has a lot of problems with things being claimed as settled science when they aren't, but this is actually one of them. You'd have a hard time finding any living economist, liberal or conservative, who would agree with you.

> (eg taken to an extreme, consider trade between county A where slavery is illegal and country B where it isn't)

I would hope that in this extreme, we wouldn't use tariffs as a tool, but rather full trade embargo. Because it stops being an economic argument, but rather a human rights argument.

Regardless, reducing or eliminating trade with nations that accept slavery would be a reduction in economic output. It would just be one with a price that we should be willing to pay.

I'd love to see any sort of human rights justification for Tariffs against Canada though.

Comparative Advantage is trivially wrong in the real world. If a potential enemy is better at making bullets than you are, you're probably still going to make bullets rather than trading for them, because if you ever come into conflict, you don't want your supply of ammunition choked. This has real world analogues in Chinese-manufactured electrical components that go into military hardware.

From a strategic perspective, the US probably needs to onshore chip manufacturing before China's chip industry reaches parity with Taiwan's. If they don't, China could effectively blockade the island and remain unaffected, while all of its competitors are. The US would lose the initiative, and have to make a reactive decision on whether or not it wants to be in a shooting war, which is a bad place to be.

Econ 101 was nice in theory when the US had no rivals. But it does now, and a country that relies on its military and technological edge as part of its economic strategy (i.e. reserve currency status, exerting soft power through global institutions that are backed up by a credible threat of violence) can't be in a position where it gets outbuilt by its competitors.

Nothing you've said invalidates comparative advantage. It is just accepting a cost (reduced economic output) in favor of some strategic advantage. It doesn't matter if its a good idea, or a moral idea, or a strategic idea, the cost is still a loss in economic output.

Sure, you can think of it as purchasing security with the cost of reduced economic output. The problem is that the benefits of autonomy, and the costs of the externalities of free trade, are difficult if not impossible to accurately value. Not only are they intangible, their true value can often only be assessed in retrospect.

> I'd love to see any sort of human rights justification for Tariffs against Canada though.

It'd probably be the opposite - Canada/EU put tariffs on the US to offset their higher standards of living and environmental considerations. But then the US should similarly do that to, say, China for the same reasons

> Sorry, but this "idea" originates from mercantilist thought and has been thoroughly dismantled and discredited. Even when one country is less wealthy and less productive, both countries benefit from expanded trade. This is Comparative Advantage...literally Econ 101.

https://www.thesling.org/the-failed-assumptions-of-free-trad...

Unfortunately for econ 101, just like the spherical cow in physics 101, reality is different and more complicated

> The best (if not only) valid argument for tariffs is that they can be used to negotiate lower tariffs.

> Unfortunately, Donald Trump doesn't agree with that.

I think most countries hit are in active negotiations to reduce or drop the tariffs. Israel has already said they're dropping their tariffs on the US and Argentina is in negotiations to do so.

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