{"id":48873,"date":"2024-02-20T01:00:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T06:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=48873"},"modified":"2024-02-19T09:01:28","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T14:01:28","slug":"qotd-tariffs-and-protectionism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/02\/20\/qotd-tariffs-and-protectionism\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Tariffs and protectionism"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; padding: 0px 25px 10px 0px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>The economic case against protectionism is practically invincible. While theoretical curiosities can be described in which an import tariff (or an export subsidy) yields to the people of the home country net economic gains, the conditions that must prevail for these possibilities to have practical merit are absurdly unrealistic.<\/p>\n<p>Yet in their efforts to justify punitive taxes on fellow citizens&#8217; purchases of imports, protectionists regularly trot out these theoretical curiosities. And none is more frequently paraded in public than is the assertion that high tariffs imposed by the home government today will pressure foreign governments to lower their tariffs tomorrow, with the final result being freer trade worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our tariffs are the best means for making trade freer and bringing about what Adam Smith and all free traders have desired: maximum possible expansion of the international division of labor!&#8221; protectionists declare with straight faces.<\/p>\n<p>This protectionist apology for tariffs is as believable as is the apology often offered by today&#8217;s campus radicals for speech codes and the harassment of certain speakers: &#8220;Our insistence on silencing conservatives and libertarians is actually a means of promoting campus diversity and inclusion!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Both declarations are Orwellian.<\/p>\n<p>Don Boudreaux, <a href=\"http:\/\/catallaxyfiles.com\/2019\/06\/11\/donald-j-boudreaux-is-trumps-ultimate-goal-global-free-trade\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Is Trump\u2019s Ultimate Goal Global Free Trade?&#8221;, <em>Catallaxy Files<\/em><\/a>, 2019-06-11.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The economic case against protectionism is practically invincible. While theoretical curiosities can be described in which an import tariff (or an export subsidy) yields to the people of the home country net economic gains, the conditions that must prevail for these possibilities to have practical merit are absurdly unrealistic. Yet in their efforts to justify [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,10,53,41],"tags":[320,266,1185],"class_list":["post-48873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-liberty","category-politics","category-quotations","tag-freetrade","tag-protectionism","tag-tariffs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-cIh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48873"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87502,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48873\/revisions\/87502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}