Of the Trump-Biden tariffs, the Tax Foundation says, essentially:
We estimate the Trump-Biden tariffs will reduce long-run GDP by 0.2 percent, the capital stock by 0.1 percent, and employment by 142,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
Candidate Trump has proposed significant tariff hikes as part of his presidential campaign; we estimate that if imposed, his proposed tariff increases would hike taxes by another $524 billion annually and shrink GDP by at least 0.8 percent, the capital stock by 0.7 percent, and employment by 684,000 full-time equivalent jobs. Our estimates do not capture the effects of retaliation, nor the additional harms that would stem from starting a global trade war.
So, in short, the Trump-Biden tariffs are a net economic harm, but Trump’s proposed, new tariff scheme represents the economic version of “Hold my beer:”
Aside from the dramatically lower costs of labor in many countries who have filled the world’s manufacturing stage, they’re also not burdened with such things as worker protections, child labor laws, or environmental protections.
Much as Trump’s radical deportation plan would probably trigger an unprecedented inflationary surge, the cost of trying to lure back a significant chunk of the manufacturing of the goods that Americans buy would likely represent an unimaginable, and totally politically unsellable, amount of pain.
Americans have been made extremely comfortable with being able to buy an infinite supply of dirt-cheap, low-quality, essentially disposable crap. Going back 70 years, to when we all had far less stuff, but when income inequality was less dramatic would require an unfathomable amount of sacrifice – again: spread inequitably across the income strata.
The poor would, early, have to make do with fewer consumer goods, while the wealthy would see their profits dwindle based on union wages and advanced-economy worker and environmental protections.
Where we’d wind up … really isn’t all that bad, IMHO, but it’s next to impossible for me to imagine a path that truly points us back there.
When manufacturing and unions built the American middle-class, those were still essentially considered ‘respectable’ jobs. More importantly, they were jobs that allowed a middle-class worker to own a home and put their kids through college.
The nature of that work hasn’t necessarily changed all that much. Our view of it – much as we see with labor shortages in the construction ‘trades --’ has.
Trump is, and was, just gulling the rubes. Add me to the list of people who was floored by Biden’s retention of Trump’s tariffs.