Why Does Trump Love Tariffs?

&gt;For decades, America pursued free trade with gusto, chasing cheaper goods and higher corporate profits. The result? De-industrialized towns, millions of lost jobs, and rising inequality.<p>Millions of lost jobs, millions of better, easier, higher value jobs created.<p>Unemployment rate is extremely low and has been except for a few years of the Great Recession.<p>&gt;Traditional economic models assume fair play.<p>Why? It has never been fair play. The US has the world&#x27;s biggest military and they push countries around for economic gains. The US has historically installed dictators as long as the they side with the US.<p>&gt;But if the aim is rebuilding industries, protecting workers, and rebalancing global power, tariffs start to look like a strategic necessity.<p>No one in America wants to work in factories anymore. Unemployment is already extremely low. Where are you going to find workers to slave away in a factory in America? Illegal immigrants?

&quot;There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.&quot; -- HL Mencken

Trump&#x27;s tariff plan starts with a lie and goes down hill from there.<p>Tariffs are a tax, plain and simple --- paid directly to the US government by US importers and manufacturers who are ultimately reimbursed by consumers (you and me).<p>Huge new tariffs amount to nothing more than a massive tax increase combined with huge price increases (aka a spike in inflation) --- a double hit to the economy.<p>Show me a country that has ever taxed it&#x27;s way to greatness.