Paying a price on goods entering the country will not encourage the manufacturing of those goods to come back to the US, it will only reduce the flow of goods coming in, increase the prices consumers pay or reduce selection. Also, dont you think the natural reaction of any country on the other end of such a tariff would be to slap a tariff on our goods and services? So the net result is lower international trade overall. The result of that is that goods have to be manufactured in thousands of places (inefficient) rather than a few place for distribution globally (highly efficient).

I don't think tariffs should be used to keep manufacturing here - but if you get to move your manufacturing to China and pay people less than you would in the US and use a process worse for the environment I think it's really silly not to put something in place to discourage that. If China puts into place labor laws and environmental laws similar to ours, then sure no tariff should be in place.

Otherwise we're just rewarding companies (many of which are American) with access to our market without having to follow any of our laws.

So you would support the state of New York putting tariffs on any goods and services coming from the state of North Dakota because they have lower wages?

What about the state of California putting tariffs in place on any company incorporated in state Delaware because Delaware corporate law doesn't have certain investor protections in place? I could list countless examples of US States that have less stringent regulations but still have free trade and open borders.

My point is that is impossible to harmonize all regulations and even if it was would have no clear universal benefits.

Have you ever wondered why all credit card statement comes from North Dakota? Or why companies are incorporated in Delaware? It's not because they have the strictest regulations. I don't hear Republicans demanding that we erect trade barriers between states to keep jobs where they started in the first place.

The truth is the Chinese population is willing to except regulations that allow awful environmental practices because the manufacturing that harms the environment is a significant opportunity to improve their standard of living. Let's not forget that only a few generations ago they were literally starving to death. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

Bringing the Chinese population into the global trading network resulted in one of the most drastic, beneficial, and impressive increases in standard of living ever. Better yet China is now moving to reduce the environmental impact by moving into higher skilled manufacturing.

A tariff is a tax on the local population, not a penalty to the origin country. The tariff is added to the sales price so the origin country is repaid. It makes the price of foreign goods higher for local purchasers to allow the local market to be competitive.

If it doesn't bring manufacturing jobs back (which it won't) it will do nothing, but lower sales. the amount lowered depends on the size of the tariff, and how much that makes the products unaffordable to the locals.

Things aren't so simple. A tax (tariff in this case) negatively affects both sides of a transaction. The effect on our side is then mitigated because the money from that tax lets us reduce other taxes in our own country.

So yes, in the end it does work out to be a penalty to the origin country.

The only local harm relates to marginal utility, but this is offset by the benefits of national security and improvements to the mix of different types of employment.

I agree with you but would argue that the lower demand created by the tarred is the penalty on the origin country.