Here’s a follow-up email to a new correspondent.
Mr. B__:
Responding to my point that keeping existing automobiles longer is as much a ‘threat’ as are automobile imports to the production of new cars, you write that “if we stretch the life of our cars, it is only a one time negative impact on the demand for new cars.” My point, therefore in your view, is “limp.”
You’re overthinking my point, which is simply that imports are only one among countless substitutes for goods and services produced domestically.
A fall in the demand for domestically produced new cars is caused no more by increased automobile imports than by increased used-car sales. A fall in the demand for home-kitchen ranges and ovens is caused no more by increased imports of home appliances than by increased demand for dining out. A fall in the demand for domestically produced lumber is caused no more by increased lumber imports than by increased use of flooring and decking made of composite materials. A fall in the demand for domestically produced aluminum is caused no more by increased aluminum imports than by technological advances at recycling aluminum. A fall in the demand for domestically produced tires is caused no more by increased tire imports than by improved road and highway surfacing. A fall in the demand for domestically produced diapers is caused no more by increased diaper imports than by falling birth rates.
This list can be much extended.
National-security considerations aside, imports’ only distinguishing feature is that they are easily demonized. We (rightly) simply don’t think of criticizing our fellow citizens for, say, buying used cars instead of new cars, or building their decks with composite materials instead of with wood. But let those same fellow citizens buy imported cars or build their decks with imported lumber, and protectionists scream holy hell about the damage done to the U.S. auto industry and about the loss of jobs for sawmill workers. And politicians – left, center, and right – storm in, vocal cords ablaze, promising to “solve” this mirage of a “problem” with tariffs that allegedly will “protect” us Americans from the wiles and ruses of scurrilous, conniving, “unfair” foreigners.
I’m disturbed by just how cavalier protectionists are about restricting their fellow citizens’ economic freedom. But I’m at least equally disturbed by just how stubbornly puerile and ignorant are the intellectual arguments typically presented for protectionism as if these prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that protective tariffs enrich a nation.
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
