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… is from page 45 of Pierre Lemieux’s excellent review (here [2], scroll down), in the Summer 2017 issue of Regulation, of the 2015 4th edition of Douglas Irwin’s indispensable book Free Trade Under Fire [3] (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?!”