In theory, the goal for all of this trade disruption was to negotiate lower tariffs. In reality, it hasn’t worked. Global tariffs have gone up. That’s a bummer for the small and midsize companies that moved production back to the United States from China before the trade dispute started. Over 50 percent of the U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports are on intermediate goods, parts and materials used to make finished U.S. products. This reality means that production costs have increased for these firms dramatically.
Chelsea Follett explains how women are empowered by free trade and hurt by tariffs.
Pierre Lemieux identifies one benefit of tariffs: they can be instructional.
Blaming foreigners is a cheap and ages-old political trick, but one that too often wins political office and public applause for those who play it. Falling for this trick has ill consequences beyond relieving us of the need to take personal responsibility for our actions. Falling for this trick also further fuels unjustified fears of foreigners — fears that impoverish us by prompting us to reject opportunities for mutually beneficial trade and cooperation with foreigners.
George Will, having read Max Hastings new book on the Vietnam war, laments the political folly and venality that lay at the root of U.S. involvement there. Here’s his conclusion:
A history book can be a historic act if, by modifying a nation’s understanding of its past, it alters future behavior. Obviously Vietnam itself was insufficiently instructive. On Page 752, the book’s concluding words are [Walter] Boomer’s: “It bothers me that we didn’t learn a lot. If we had, we would not have invaded Iraq.” Sometimes, contrary to Marx, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then not as farce but as tragedy again.
But Mill and Sidgwick assumed that since they could not imagine a private solution, government provision of the service itself must be necessary.
And that’s not true. Markets are at least as adaptable as government, and in many cases the capacity for innovation, especially regarding local externalities, is far greater. In fact, as Candela and Geloso point out in a Public Choice paper, the range of creative responses can be remarkable. The solution is not a pure market outcome, of course, because government action and enforcement of property rights are an indispensable part of efficient market processes. The lighthouses of coastal England in 1840 were not pure market entities, but rather a kind of hybrid.
Jeff Jacoby observes that Elizabeth Warren is, genetically, a typical white American.
David Von Drehle rightly cherishes the demise of Sears. A slice:
Despite its perennial appeal in coffee shops and on college campuses, socialism fails wherever it steps in to protect flabby enterprises from the lethal winnowing of competition. Legacy companies naturally act to preserve the status quo, because the past was where they flourished. Give them the protection, the special favor, of state power and they will use it to snuff out young and vigorous competitors while they have the chance.
The same is true of the so-called capitalists who seek to convince governments that they are too big to fail, and therefore require special care and favors. If granted, those advantages ultimately weaken society by stifling initiative.
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Protectionism is not a theory in the correct sense of the term, but it comes under some of the popular and incorrect uses of the word. It is purely dogmatic and 
They have never had any plan or purpose in their tariff legislation. Congress has simply laid itself open to be acted upon by the interested parties, and the product of its tariff legislation has been simply the resultant of the struggles of the interested cliques with each other, and of the log rolling combinations which they have been forced to make among themselves. In 1882 Congress did pay some deference, real or pretended, to the plain fact that it was bound, if it exercised this mighty power and responsibility, to bring some intelligence to bear on it, and it appointed a Tariff Commission which spent several months in collecting evidence. This Commission was composed of protectionists with one exception. It recommended a reduction of 25 per cent. in the tariff, and said: “Early in its deliberations the Commission became convinced that a substantial reduction of tariff duties is demanded, not by a mere indiscriminate popular clamor, but by the best conservative opinion of the country.” “Excessive duties are positively injurious to the interests which they are supposed to benefit. They encourage the investment of capital in manufacturing enterprises by rash and unskilled speculators, to be followed by disaster to the adventurers and their employés, and a plethora of commodities which deranges the operations of skilled and prudent enterprise.” This report was entirely, thrown aside, and 
There is actually plenty of planning in capitalism: individuals and firms make plans all the time. Those plans get constant and instant feedback from the daily decisions of customers on what they will or will not buy, and producers quickly adjust their plans accordingly. If they make a mistake, it is only they who suffer. But things are quite different when a nation’s entire production is planned. Such huge schemes are slow to put into effect and to change; there is less feedback because consumers have less choice; so there is less dynamism and progress. And if the plan proves mistaken, the whole nation suffers.
The problem of economic liberty touches every exchange of goods and services, the ownership of property, and every contractual arrangement involving these “economic” affairs, because human relationships are involved in all of them.
