They lead to political corruption, history shows, as the government picks winners and losers.President Donald Trump has been trying to remake American trade policy, forging better deals for the United States with other nations, including China and the European Union countries. Higher tariffs, or taxes upon the goods these nation export to us, is the main way he's trying to get them to come to the bargaining table.
The Republican party and the conservative movement have long been the home of free-market economics, which since at least the time of Adam Smith has disdained tariffs as inefficient and counterproductive. As Scott Lincicome — a trade lawyer with the Cato Institute — has put it, “tariffs not only impose immense economic costs but also fail to achieve their primary policy aims and foster political dysfunction along the way.”
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