Reciprocal Trade Barriers

I am not a big fan of tariffs by any country, or other trade barriers, some of which are pretty sneaky.  Everyone howls about Trump’s trade proposals and how they will supposedly cause inflation, loss of jobs, etc.  But what no one talks about, until now, is how high the existing trade barriers are in almost every other country.  The United States has had relatively very low trade barriers, including tariffs, because we believed in free trade.  We have to a large extent been treated as suckers by all other countries, including our supposed allies.  These countries, Canada and Mexico prominent among them, have far higher trade barriers than we do.  Canada, for example, has wholesale bans on US companies in certain industries doing business there, and has much higher tariffs.  It also has absurd “Canadian content” rules for entertainment services.  Apparently US-produced entertainment is just much better than Canadian-produced, so Canadians have to be forced to consume local crap they don’t really want to see.

Countries like China and India run huge trade surpluses with us but have all kinds of barriers and tariffs to keep US products out of their markets and run campaigns telling people it is patriotic to only buy local goods and services.  Our friends in Europe have massive tariffs or outright bans to keep US agriculture products, which are better quality and cheaper, out of their markets and protect their farmers.  And on and on.  So whatever you think of free trade, it clearly isn’t fair for countries to expect us to live by it while they go full-on protectionist.

So Trump’s latest move on trade, the imposition of reciprocal tariffs, which really cover all types of trade barriers, is pure genius, because it highlights those foreign trade barriers.  And it makes apparent to local populations exactly how protectionist their own government has been.  If that foreign country wants to avoid Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, all they have to do is eliminate the barriers that caused the reciprocity.  If free trade is good for the US, it is good for those other countries too. And if they don’t eliminate the barriers, they can hardly complain when we erect the same ones.  Truly a brilliant approach.

And idiot outlets like the New York Times refers to it as “punishing” allies, but aren’t those allies equally guilty of punishing the US?  And the morons at CNN tried to claim that Canada doesn’t stop US banks from operating in Canada while going on to explain in detail how they are regulated differently than Canadian banks, and certainly than Canadian banks are in the US, which makes it expensive and difficult for them to do business there.  The mainstream media hasn’t learned a thing and wonder why they have zero credibility.