To the editor: President Trump’s tariffs confronted their day in court docket final week (“Why Trump’s tariff technique may survive a Supreme Court docket defeat,” Nov. 7). 9 Supreme Court docket justices will quickly resolve their legality, however economists have lengthy since rendered their verdict on their efficacy (or lack thereof).
The nineteenth century economist Henry George as soon as wrote, “What safety teaches us is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies search to do to us in time of struggle.” Few traces higher seize the folly of President Trump’s long-standing romance with tariffs.
Protectionism, George acknowledged, quantities to a self-imposed blockade. If blockades are an efficient option to strangle an enemy’s economic system, why would we ever voluntarily inflict such hurt on ourselves?
Conservatives as soon as understood this. Ronald Reagan declared that protectionism is “destructionism.” By taxing imports, we don’t punish foreigners. We punish ourselves. That’s not “America first” — it’s financial self-sabotage.
Scott Burns, Baton Rouge, La.
