while economists dismiss tariffs out-of-hand, they can certainly be used strategically to dampen the otherwise sudden effects of free trade on industries. the tariffs should be implemented dynamically and smoothly, increasing and decreasing over time without a sudden dislocation.

the other tool we tend to overlook is immigration. grow the economy through internal demand and upstart labor rather than external. but that means the possibility of more non-white people--unfortunately a real roadblock here (in the US).

> the other tool we tend to overlook is immigration. grow the economy through internal demand and upstart labor rather than external.

The thing about immigration is that it can be good or bad. Immigration of entrepreneurs and skilled workers can grow the local economy, but immigration of unskilled workers into a country that already has an oversupply of unskilled labor only serves to suppress wages and increase the unemployment rolls.

And advocates of increased immigration typically use the numbers from legal immigration, which is (by design) disproportionately immigration of the first kind. But increasing immigration implies relaxing those sort of restrictions, and then the numbers change.

Immigration also can't be a global solution since it's a zero sum game. You take a doctor from one country and move them to another, it helps the destination country but harms the source. It's not helping us to take in another country's cab drivers, but it's also not helping poorer countries when we take their engineers away from them.