Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
Editor:
Reporting on the president’s trade policy, you report that “Trump has repeatedly said reciprocal tariffs would mean ‘what they charge us, we charge them’” (“Trump Team Explored Simplified Plan for Reciprocal Tariffs,” March 18).
Because protective tariffs are taxes designed to raise the prices that fellow citizens pay for imports – and, hence, for import-competing domestic alternatives – Trump would be more accurate if he said “what they tax their citizens, we’ll tax our citizens.” Were the president to be this frank, fewer Americans would be enthusiastic about his self-destructive scheme for off-shoring U.S. tax policy.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
