Trump’s tariffs: a move in the right direction
When Donald Trump won the US presidential election, the entire world was shocked. Few people outside the US expected something good to come out and for a year and a half one disaster followed another. Millions of American citizens were deprived of affordable health care, nothing was done to lessen the widespread slaughter caused by lax gun control, a ban was placed on immigrants from select Muslim countries, the U.S. was withdrawn from the The Paris Agreement on climate change to rein in the polluting oil and coal industries, and America’s NATO allies came under severe criticism, while Russia’s President Putin was treated as a friend. All of these were actions that many people expected and feared. But now, by introducing tariffs on imported goods, Trump has taken a small step toward a better world.
With the great increase in international travel and communications, and especially since the advent of the Internet, there are engineers in every country with advanced design and manufacturing skills. Therefore, we should move towards a situation where everything that a country needs is done in that country by the people of that country. In this way, the need for international trade is minimized, restricted to essential raw materials and food not available in the destination country. Large reductions in fossil fuel consumption could be made, reducing air and ocean pollution and slowing global warming.
For several decades, large companies have been going from one country to another in search of cheap labor and, at the same time, they have sought to sell their products in all countries. As a result, wage rates have risen in poor countries and have remained more or less stagnant in advanced countries from which industries have fled. As the gap closes, the benefits of seeking the cheapest labor diminish. At the same time, selling more products and services requires customers to have income at a level that makes it affordable. As Henry Ford is said to have said: if you don’t pay your workers well, who’s going to buy your cars? This is how America got rich in the first place from American companies selling to Americans.
Now all countries can begin to be like the old United States: providing a good life for its people with a vibrant domestic market and minimal foreign trade. Putting import tariffs to protect American jobs and persuading Americans to buy more homegrown products is a step toward this utopia that other countries are rushing to follow. Every cloud has a silver lining, and Trump’s promised trade war could herald a better peace for all.
