I meant "this one" in abstract, not the one in the article. Ie you can easily link an item in a shop to a clause in your policy and an amount that has been paid. There is no way to understand that implications so simply with (eg) quotas.

Sure, if you want to make an abstract, general statement about how tariffs, as a concept have certain advantages, ok.

I don't see how that's relevant to the specific disadvantages the article is pointing out about this tariff in particular.

It's not. It's a point about tariffs in general.

I'd say this view comes from massively underestimating the complexity of the effects on the economy that result from the externalities of instituting tariffs.

One function of tariffs is to put political pressure on other countries. That's exactly what China is doing here. By only putting tariffs on uncompleted goods, it now makes even less sense to assemble in the US. This is in direct opposition to what a lot of Trump's voters were voting for: more manufacturing in the US.

The first part of your statement is generally accurate. However, the article is discussing tariffs the US has chosen. This is not something China is doing.

I missed that completely. Well that's just bizarre...

There is massive cognitive dissonance in trying to explain a lot of current events because they are so beyond what you expect to make sense.

Yesterday I was trying to explain to a friend about the children separated at the border and how the parents are then being deported alone and have to apply afterwards to try and find their children, and it took about seven attempts. She didn't understand what I was saying at first because she assumed I must have misspoke, as doing that doesn't compute.

The US courts have ruled that children are not to be incarcerated with their parents. It seems reasonable and moral that children are not punished for the crimes their parents commit. If the parents break the law and go to jail, the children go somewhere else, like foster care. When the parents get out of jail, they have to find their children to bring the family back together. This situation is not really hard to understand if you think that the government should enforce the current immigration laws.

The US immigration system has been so screwed up for so long that everyone just keeps kicking the problems down the road. Probably needs a complete deletion and start from scratch re-write, but that almost never works out like one hopes.

As an aside, from the Houston Chronicle: https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Explainer-I...