The Spire

Tucker Scott ’26

Opinions Editor

A central policy of the Trump agenda — and one of the only bipartisan ideas left in Congress — is that we should place tariffs on foreign goods. However, the reasoning behind this varies immensely, from national security to trade imbalance and from protectionism to autocracy.

There are only two real reasons a nation should impose tariffs on another country — first, national security. For a clear example of this, look no further than China. The nation is and has been a military and economic threat to the United States for decades and has only grown in prominence since the fall of the Soviet Union. So it makes little sense to allow China to benefit from trading when they use those benefits against America and her interests. Iran is another country that America has had and should have a trade embargo and tariffs on. Another example might be using tariffs as a leverage point to encourage Mexico to strengthen its border policy.

The other reason is to stop international companies from ripping off American citizens. The perfect example of this is healthcare. As it is well known, European countries’ healthcare costs much less than American healthcare despite having a nationalized system. This is because the costs of healthcare are raised on American citizens to make up for the loss of revenue from the nations with nationalized health care, as well as America being responsible for the development of most drugs. So in order to bring the unnatural costs of healthcare down for American citizens, the government should put tariffs on healthcare, forcing healthcare companies to either raise their prices on European nations or lower their prices on American products.

Pharmaceutical products are cheaper abroad partly because companies know they can make money in the U.S. market, and thus are willing to tolerate smaller profit margins in other countries. Therefore, we are subsidizing the cost of healthcare in those other countries. And not just any old countries. Some of the richest countries in the world — like Switzerland and Germany. If we negotiated pharmaceutical prices more aggressively here in the U.S., the pharmaceutical industry might be more reluctant to accept lower prices elsewhere. This would lead to European nations paying more for healthcare and for Americans to pay less.

However, all this being said, tariffs generally are not a positive thing. Two common arguments that those in favor of tariffs make are that we must balance trade imbalances with other countries and that we must protect American industries from global competition. Both of these notions are not only wrong but also extremely dangerous.

When discussing trade imbalances, people often point out that America has a trade deficit of $773 billion. This ignores two important facts. First, any dollar spent overseas eventually finds its way back to American markets. Second, a trade deficit isn’t necessarily a bad thing; in fact, in some cases, it can be good. The most trade-balanced nation on the planet right now is Venezuela. Right now, their citizens are suffering and dying.

The other popular argument is that we must raise tariffs in order to protect American industries. However, the actions taken to protect those industries will only end up destroying them. In the 1970s, Detroit was the manufacturing capital of the world with cars. But now it isn’t. Why? Because the car industry didn’t innovate and revolutionize. So it was eventually left behind and went bankrupt despite all the attempts to hold the industry up.

When it comes down to it, a tariff is a tax on the American people. But that doesn’t mean that there is no time or reason when we should pay it. And if tariffs are being used as a bargaining chip then fine. If Trump threatened tariffs to lower tariffs overall, then that would be great. But there needs to be, especially in the case of Canada, some explicit despaired policy goal that would end with the tariffs being lowered. If Trump doesn’t communicate that, the Canadians don’t know what needs to be done to reduce the tariffs, so they respond with retaliatory tariffs, which hurt the U.S. economy. That in no way would mean that we’d somehow lose a trade war with Canada; we wouldn’t, but that would come at the cost of Canada choosing to trade with more adversarial countries like China, who are more than happy to take any and all money offered. But again, if this is a bargaining maneuver then fine, but just say that. Make clear what you want and what needs to happen for the tariffs to go away. If you want not just President Trump — but America — to succeed then you should be in favor of the lowering of tariffs. 

Whether you are on the economic right or economic left, whether you are a populist or a socialist, whether you support Tucker Carlson or Bernie Sanders it doesn’t matter. Yes, there are some uses for tariffs, but tariffs on their own are not a good thing and we should stop pretending they are.

Featured image courtesy of The New York Times

Copy Edited by Lily Wasmund ’28