… is from page 41 of economist Lionel Robbins’s excellent and still-relevant 1937 book, Economic Planning and International Order:
We may admit, too, that it is conceivable that the threat of the imposition of tariffs by one nation may lead to the lowering of tariffs by others – although, at this time of day, the suggestion that this sort of thing usually happens is not really very plausible.
DBx: The typical response of any government to so-called “retaliatory tariffs” imposed by another government is to further raise and to widen its own tariffs. The practical result of “retaliatory tariffs” is not freer trade, but self-destructive and idiotic trade wars.
