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Notes -
It could also decrease those wages, in fact it‘s very likely. First there‘s the obvious loss in purchasing power through tariff-induced inflation. And secondly, the american consumer loves consooming too much. He will eat the seed corn if you leave him alone with it. Other countries used to make up for it with their savings, ensuring the american worker‘s productivity was higher than it would be if he had to rely on his own meager savings for investment.
I find this economic story at least as plausible as trump‘s ‚my trade deficit is your profit‘ . Partly because my theory doesn‘t rely on the very adventurous claim that the rich guy is actually being exploited by the poor foreigners who send him the stuff he consumes.
Dubious and clashing economic narratives aside, you have to concede that the argument in favour of tariffs is necessarily weak and specific to certain non-typical situations, else tariffs between US states would be a good idea.
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