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on Tariffs in general, they serve a positive purpose.
Tarrifs help your country keeps its individual economy going, and seeks imports for items that are not practically produced inside their own borders, and exports those items that are impractical to produce in the countries they export to. in the case of the usa, post-WWII there was a need for the USA help prop up and rebuild the economies around the world, tariffs got in the way of that, but, now, those days are long gone. time for the USA to rebuild itself!
Another outcome of the lack of tariffs is it opens countries up to devastating their businesses where products and services can be produced in the country and then puts them at a national security risk in not being able to produce those products and services in a national crisis when trade abruptly breaks down between two countries.
I believe its a misconception that some people think any business needs to compete on the global market, well, no truly it does not. It is good if they can, and especially if it's not at the cost of devastating the industries globally.
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Tariff could actually may improve technology if used wisely.
Imagine if USA had heavy tariff on consumer electronics 20 years ago enough to keep consumer electronics manufacturing state-side, competition within the USA will drive development in manufacturing technology to drive down cost to compete within the USA as well as globally.
That may seem theoretical, but take a look at farming, automation greatly reduced production cost within the EU making farming still viable. EU tariff for agricultural products (pre-current trade war around the corner) average is around 30% and US tariff is around 10%
[1]. Without that, EU's farming may long since moved to the Americas (USA, Brazil, Argentina, etc.) or elsewhere. Instead, EU's farming is still viable, EU's automation and robotics likely benefited
[2] instead of becoming obsolete - and all these happens without the need of importing labor to do "jobs that Europeans wouldn't do."
References/sources:[1] Economic Research Service, USDA publication: "U.S. and EU Farm Policy—How Similar?"
The 30% average is from reading the bar graph on page 17, figure 1B "U.S., EU average agricultural tariffs, megatariffs". Average (as far as the resolution a bar graph goes) look like 10 v 30 for the average tariff, and around 20 v 140 for mega-tariff.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/40408/30643_wrs0404c_002.pdf[2] Article from ArgiTech Tomorrow, "Automating Agriculture: How Automation and Robotics Have Taken to the Fields", 2018
"...Jonathan Wilkins, marketing director at
obsolete industrial parts supplier, EU Automation, explains how automation is benefiting the farming industry...
fitness trackers for cows is a blossoming industry...market revenue of
$2,927 million in 2016, but is
expected to rocket to $11,050 million in 2023. But why is
automation spilling out of the automotive, aerospace and electronic sectors and into the agricultural market?..."
[RL: emphasis added to quote]
https://www.agritechtomorrow.com/article/2018/02/automating-agriculture-how-automation-and-robotics-have-taken-to-the-fields/10511