Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
Editor:
Your headline reads “Trump to Hit China With Additional 100% Tariff” (October 10).
That’s incorrect. Your headline should instead read “Trump to Hit Americans With Additional 100% Tax on Their Purchases from China.”
Although they inflict some negative consequences on a handful of foreigners, tariffs are overwhelmingly taxes on fellow citizens. Every time Trump raises tariffs, he pummels us, his fellow Americans, with restrictions on how we may spend our hard-earned incomes. The chief victims of Trump’s tariffs are us Americans, who are made not only materially poorer but – far worse – less free.
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
