… is from page 45 of Pierre Lemieux’s excellent review (here, scroll down), in the Summer 2017 issue of Regulation, of the 2015 4th edition of Douglas Irwin’s indispensable book Free Trade Under Fire (original emphases):
Free Trade under Fire provides multiple examples of the high costs of protectionism. During the 1980s, textile and clothing tariffs and quotas raised prices on American consumers, costing them $140,000 for each domestic textile job saved. The 2009 American tariff on car and truck tires cost $900,00 per gross job saved, but it may have actually reduced the net number of jobs because consumers spent less on other goods and services.
DBx: Whenever I am asked – as I am frequently asked – “How do you justify your free-trade principles to the American workers who lost their jobs to free trade, huh?!” I respond by asking each of my interlocutors, “How do you justify your protectionist principles to the American workers who lost their jobs to protectionism, huh?!”
