Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

Re:Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also... by MattPalmer1086 on Saturday April 05, 2025 @05:22AM (#43592110)

It's clearly not protectionism, because you wouldn't put tariffs on everything - including all the raw materials and parts you need to import, if you wanted your local industries to succeed. And you'd have a coherent industrial policy to go along with it.

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Re:Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also... by colechristensen on Saturday April 05, 2025 @05:36PM (#43597004)

Protectionism is France and England putting tariffs on each others cheese. America putting tariffs on Canadian lumber.

Putting tariffs on places that have a 20x factor difference in wages is something else.

And protectionism isn't necessarily a dirty word. It's often valuable to save your local industries from being wiped out and to not have a foreign country have complete control of a necessity.

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Re:Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also... by MattPalmer1086 on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:39AM (#43599896)

My point is only that these tariffs cannot be motivated by protectionism, since they are not targeted and will also disadvantage local industry.

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