The nasty label of “liberal” has been stuck on
those who favor public schools, public highways,
Social Security with simpler programs of Medicare
and Medicaid, and such socialistic schemes as a taxpaid
police force and fire department, and an effective
national army. Long ago, in the good old days of conservatism,
we had none of the above.
At the same time, so-called liberals are maligned
because they favor free trade, unlike President Trump.
Many of them believe in the righteous power of the
marketplace as long as it is protected from false weights
and measures.
The president’s current putsch to wall off Canadian
steel (the Chinese send us little of it) and to drive up the
price of aluminum and the bauxite that makes it, is seriously
misplaced. He exaggerates this folly by announcing
that new American tariffs will be selectively placed
and enforced, as though we were in it mostly for the
blackmail. NAFTA comes quickly to mind. History
reminds us of the dangers in high tariffs, quotas and
other sanctions designed to protect American workers
and industries.
Trade barriers accomplish little more than higher
prices for consumers and sometimes provide shoddy
merchandise and limited choices, because there is limited
domestic production. American consumers are thus
penalized for the benefit of the few. (A reverse tariff on
electronics comes to mind.)
Today’s reckless adventure recalls the Smoot-Hawley
Tariff Act, signed by Herbert Hoover in 1930. Its high
tariffs provoked retaliatory tariffs and world trade wars
that stimulated the Great Depression, further heated
European inflation and contributed to the origins of a
second world war.
Kansas farmers, known for their short memories,
have often suffered through our history of sanctions,
embargoes and economic reprisals for political purposes.
Over the years, what has happened to our wheat,
corn and beef exports as presidents and other politicians
played food as a weapon? (For one current example, we
have lost Cuba as a customer. And would Asia retaliate
on our exports of food and fiber?)
Trump and his brood of conservatives seem to believe
that we Americans are not smarter, more efficient and
hard-working than other nationals and that we must
dig a hole and pull over the lid – just what the farmer
needs. It’s also true that we shout for free enterprise but
rarely practice it. We teach courses in entrepreneurship
and exercise it through protectionist lobbies in Topeka
and Washington.
If the Japanese, regardless of Pearl Harbor, and the
Chinese, regardless of Mao, can make better gadgets
at better prices, why not be their customers? Why
pay through the nose for the benefit of Detroit and
Pittsburgh, or Silicon Valley? “Made in USA” is fine,
but aren’t we all immigrants?
Trump seems unaware that we have not enjoyed free
trade with Japan, or Germany, because the Japanese and
Germans have devised high and seemingly artificial
obstacles to imports from the United States. Our farmers
and manufacturers are at a disadvantage in competition
with Europeans because the European market and
its members subsidize many of its exports, particularly
farm products.
For most years our sales abroad have been handicapped
by the strength of the dollar against foreign
currencies. Although a strong dollar enables us to buy
bargains abroad and ride cruise boats on the Rhine, it
also tends to inhibit our sales to foreign markets. We
may enjoy low-priced imports but we can suffer highpriced
exports.
Economics, that dismal science, is not so simple as
it seems to the dogmatic and sloganeering Trumpeters.
Faults may be found in the noblest of ideas, and snares
in the path of our most reasonable progress. Tariffs in
the name of “national security” have been proved time
and again to impede that security and rarely, if ever,
enhance it.
‒ JOHN MARSHALL
