They seem to be quite effective here in Norway. We have very high rates on imported food that competes with local production. The goal is to ensure we can be fairly self-sufficient when it comes to food.
So far it seems to be doing a good job at keeping cheap EU-made food out of our grocery stores.
Of course implementation matters a lot. We have no farmers growing corn in Norway, so we don't have any tariffs on corn. We do have farmers growing apples, but there's no harvesting those during our snowy winters so our tariffs on apples are just active when local apples are in season. We do produce beef all year, but not always enough so they hand out limited quotas allowing for massive reduction in duties to compensate and meet demand.
And I think the most important part: Tariffs are only a part of a larger system of a comprehensive agricultural policy in Norway, covering region-specific subsidies, research, agro-tourism and sustainbility. The country doesn't just make food more expensive at the border.
> We do have farmers growing apples, but there's no harvesting those during our snowy winters so our tariffs on apples are just active when local apples are in season
I'm curious: apples are fairly easy to store in bulk. That's a large part of why we have them year round.
So what's stopping someone from importing apples outside the season and then sorting them to circumvent those tariffs?
Nothing, AFAIK. And we do see imported apples year round here[1], many which are not stored but imported directly with duties paid.
Though a lot of local apples goes to production of other goods.
For example various apple juices made from local apples have become popular, especially as an alternative to wine. The price of a 1L bottle of quality, loc apple juice can be the same as a 0.7L bottle of Riesling wine, around $7. And you need a lot of apples to make juice.
If we're putting words in peoples' mouths, are the opponents of chaos apologists "wealth-class parasitism apologists"? Because the benefits of a goods-in debt-out trade arrangement have skewed the prosperity curve in one clear direction.
A policy, however good an idea, must be implemented properly for lasting success.
“Wealth-class parasites” as you call them did that for decades under the guise of stability.
Why are none of the new protectionist policies implemented with a modicum of stability? Why must everything be done with flip-flipping gusto? Why do we have to become the laughing stock of the world?
For some reason, every sensible person arguing for protectionism (e.g. Oren Cass) at no point argues that how it’s being implemented is detrimental to the cause.
Do you really think tarrifs or any other policy experiments will survive if congress flips? The implementation of these ideas is a farce that will only encourage their elimination. This is not how policy persists for decades.
Why stability? If the stable state is not working, flip it. The stable order is facing popular resistance for a reason. Everyone who benefited from the stable state will feel pain and complain, and they'll correct their strategic stances for the newer unstable order: Onshored supply chains, better inventories than just-in-time, less reliance on inflation assets and more on production assets. Even those feeling the pain can see why, but the only ones blind to it are those ideologically staked to the old order, which was not working. Those people don't deserve to be stakeholders anymore, and if they're knocked off their perches, all the better. Renewal will happen.
If it won't persist because democracy will flip it around schizophrenically, then you're just speaking ill of democracy at that point. Can't have that.
> Why stability? If the stable state is not working, flip it.
Because this is a weird talk where only extremes are talked about, that is popular when you have only two established parties and no system that enables more nuanced ideas.
> and they'll correct their strategic stances for the newer unstable order: Onshored supply chains,
In a decade or so... maybe.
But why touch that stable state? Maybe lets bring back slavery? Or how about mandatory service and some land invasion? Or split out the states as independent countries? What else would you like to flip to check if it maybe works better, since stable state is not great?
The questions was why touch that stable state specifically. As in, why random tariffs, if you're up for flipping random switches with no good plan anyway. (My guess - it made some people lots of money. Not in a way that would make majority happy.)
> they'll correct their strategic stances for the newer unstable order: Onshored supply chains, better inventories than just-in-time, less reliance on inflation assets and more on production assets
How exactly do you think instability encourages long-term investment in manufacturing? Not the dynamic of being in a better position if factories simply popped into existence, but actually plunking down money hoping for a return in the face of economic slowdown and political instability.
The actual response I expect is even more goods shipped directly from China, with tariff taxes built right into the sale price (Aliexpress didn't miss a beat on that one), and with the general uncertainty raising Chinese sellers' profit margins.
How does disincentivizing rival supply chains and incentivizing domestic supply chains incentivize the construction of domestic supply chains? Are you really asking this question? Is there an echo?
I am asking how the construction of domestic supply chains is actually being incentivized here. And how it isn't just disincentivizing the remaining few domestic hops of the current supply chains and moving even the warehousing to foreign shores.
If the minimum viable customer-sale price after importing a given product rises above the minimum viable customer-sale price when domestically manufactured, the choice becomes obvious to entrepreneurs. This isn't difficult, and it isn't a trick.
Markets are not computationally easy (ie globally efficient), as you seem to be assuming. If they were, central planning would actually work.
Rather there are many sticky intrinsic factors like network effects, path dependency, and economies of scale that would need to be overcome to make the scales tip the other way. This is why once manufacturing started going to China, it then continued accelerating. To start bringing it back, we would need to clear a high activation energy.
Then there are the additional issues with the current approach. For starters, building new factories requires a bunch of industrial equipment. But with the blanket import taxes that has all shot up in price as well.
There is also the uncertainty of trying to plan on the long term scales of capital payback in the presence of an administration that flip flops on policies by the month, has seemingly no clue what they're doing, carves exceptions for the politically connected who bribe at McDonalds-al-Lago, and continues escalating the attacks against our traditionally stable-for-capital rule of law. From the investment perspective, it feels we're moving in the direction of a South American dictatorship where it only makes sense to run economically-colonizing "suitcase operations" rather than broad-base industrialization.
The "stability" is referring to how Trump's trade policies are constantly changing every few days, and are thus too unstable to plan business policy around. If Trump wants to promote US manufacturing, it's important that his policies to do so are stable enough for investors to plan profitable future US factories.
It is not talking about a stable government and the benefits/drawbacks of that.
The point is that if the trade policies are unstable, manufacturers will minimize imports and shipping across their supply chain. This isn't difficult to comprehend.
Yes. And you profusely apologized for wealth-class parasitism by way of stability for stability's sake, which is a core heterodox criticism of the previous order.
Being raised Republican, you are taught from elementary age that taxes are morally evil. They should only be imposed as necessary and as a disincentive against evil behavior.
Also the government is incompetent, bloated, and also evil. The only truly good government is god and his appointed ~grifters~ [messengers].
I wish I was joking. That's what I was taught at home for like 30y.
> Hillsdale College is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025, a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from The Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power since Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
To put it kindly a lot them are chaos apologists.