Consider for a moment that the largest industrial import is crude oil, accounting for 164 billion dollars in 2023 [1].
Slapping a tariff on imports sounds good in theory, but domestic production is not currently capable of supplying an equivalent amount of oil. Ramping up production to that scale takes a long time, and imports are going to be necessary in the meantime.
So, what happens when an X% import tax is introduced? Gasoline refineries pay X% more and pass the cost down to the consumer by raising prices at least X%.
In the short term, this is going to fuck the average American. And unless America fights hard against non-renewable energy and EVs, it’s also going to fuck America in the long run by investing in the production of something with (ideally) dwindling demand.
And that’s just oil/gas. There’s a lot more raw materials that are difficult and/or expensive to extract domestically but cheap to obtain through global trade.
Consider for a moment that the largest industrial import is crude oil, accounting for 164 billion dollars in 2023 [1].
Slapping a tariff on imports sounds good in theory, but domestic production is not currently capable of supplying an equivalent amount of oil. Ramping up production to that scale takes a long time, and imports are going to be necessary in the meantime.
So, what happens when an X% import tax is introduced? Gasoline refineries pay X% more and pass the cost down to the consumer by raising prices at least X%.
In the short term, this is going to fuck the average American. And unless America fights hard against non-renewable energy and EVs, it’s also going to fuck America in the long run by investing in the production of something with (ideally) dwindling demand.
And that’s just oil/gas. There’s a lot more raw materials that are difficult and/or expensive to extract domestically but cheap to obtain through global trade.
[1] https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/ft900/final_2023.pdf