The Briefing Room
General Category => Editorial/Opinion/Blogs => Topic started by: EasyAce on July 24, 2018, 08:39:59 pm
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Tariffs are so great that we have to create new government programs to compensate the victims of tariffs.
By Eric Boehm
http://reason.com/blog/2018/07/24/tariffs-are-so-great-farmers-need-help (http://reason.com/blog/2018/07/24/tariffs-are-so-great-farmers-need-help)
President Donald Trump's proclamation that trade wars are "good and easy to win (https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/26/easy-to-win-trade-war-proves-trump-wrong)" now has competition for the honor of being the most ridiculous thing America's protectionist-in-chief has said about his anti-trade policies. This morning he dropped this whopper:
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
Tariffs are the greatest! Either a country which has treated the
United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets
hit with Tariffs. It’s as simple as that - and everybody’s talking!
Remember, we are the “piggy bank†that’s being robbed. All will
be Great!
4:29 AM - Jul 24, 2018
The kicker to the tweet came a few hours later, when The Washington Post reported (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/white-house-readies-plan-for-12-billion-in-emergency-aid-to-farmers-caught-in-trumps-escalating-trade-war/2018/07/24/7bec9af4-8f4d-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html?utm_term=.adf5a739c081) that the White House was preparing to spend $12 billion to subsidize farmers stung by tariffs. The funds will be available around Labor Day, according to the Post.
To sum up: Tariffs are so great that the federal government has to create new spending programs to compensate the tariffs' victims. If you think that doesn't make sense, you must not be sufficiently committed to making America great again.
More seriously, this is further proof that Trump's argument for trade barriers is completely unraveling (https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/02/trump-case-for-tariffs-collapsing). The White House has never made much of an effort to outline exactly how these tariffs would improve America's relationships with the affected trading partners, even as analysis (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/06/why-the-rust-belt-economy-will-suffer-in-a-trade-war/) after analysis (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/06/how-trumps-steel-and-aluminum-tariffs-could-affect-state-economies/) suggests the policy would do exactly what it has done: hike prices and threaten jobs, with manufacturing (http://tradepartnership.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/232EmploymentPolicyBrief.pdf) and farming (https://www.agweb.com/article/retaliatory-tariffs-will-hurt-farmers-/) hardest hit . . . dismissing the consequences of tariffs becomes more difficult—or at least requires a higher degree of cognitive dissonance—when you are simultaneously subsidizing people because they were hurt by the tariffs. How many mere hiccups require a $12 billion program to abate their effects? . . .
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I think Reason magazine is reputable, but in today's world of "fake news", I thought I'd double check the tweet.
Frankly, I did so because I thought, in light of today's news about the farm bailout, this tweet couldn't be correct.
Trump wouldn't say that now, even if he has said/tweeted some off the wall things a time or two, but surely not this.
Well, the tweet quoted here is exactly what Trump tweeted, verbatim.
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We don't have 12 BILLION dollars to give to farmers. Trump ordered a new Air Force One airplane so he could have the color he wanted - we have to pay for that and we don't have the money for 12 BILLION dollars for farmers because of what he did with tariffs. He will be the most costly president we ever had - he does not care - he is spending our money, not his.
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Trump is proving himself an even greater imbecile than Obama.
Country's do not get hit with tariffs. The American consumer gets hit with them, and when the market for our goods are blocked, our people suffer.
So now that our people are suffering thanks to Trump's idiocy of wanting this trade war (which will likely go hot at some point), Trump's solution is to use MORE taxpayer monies to BAIL THEM OUT.
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The problem with you #Never's is that you never got over how hard checkers is, therefore you'll never understand nth dimensional Chess. #SAD
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The problem with you #Never's is that you never got over how hard checkers is, therefore you'll never understand nth dimensional Chess. #SAD
No the problem is that most never got their scuba certification so that they could play the chess underwater. #INCREDULARITY