Tariffs Are for Losers
null By Andy KesslerDec. 10, 2023 1:50 pm ETJournal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Kate Bachelder Odell, Kyle Peterson, Allysia Finley and Dan Henninger. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark KellyWho said this? “To really rebuild the industrial heartland of America, you need a committed national policy of tariffs, of protecting American industries.” It was J.D. Vance during his successful 2022 campaign for U.S. Senate. This thinking is dangerous and pervasive—bipartisan battiness. In reality, tariffs impose costs on all Americans to subsidize a few jobs. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, also a Republican, has proposed the Raising Tariffs on Imports from China Act. All he’s missing is a colleague named Smoot to reprise the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and cause a market crash and depression. Mr. Hawley said in June that “in the last 20 years in the state of Missouri, we have lost 60,000 jobs to the People’s Republic of China—that number nationwide is almost four million.
Dec. 10, 2023 1:50 pm ET
Who said this? “To really rebuild the industrial heartland of America, you need a committed national policy of tariffs, of protecting American industries.” It was J.D. Vance during his successful 2022 campaign for U.S. Senate. This thinking is dangerous and pervasive—bipartisan battiness. In reality, tariffs impose costs on all Americans to subsidize a few jobs.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, also a Republican, has proposed the Raising Tariffs on Imports from China Act. All he’s missing is a colleague named Smoot to reprise the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and cause a market crash and depression. Mr. Hawley said in June that “in the last 20 years in the state of Missouri, we have lost 60,000 jobs to the People’s Republic of China—that number nationwide is almost four million.” No mention of the better jobs that were created. There were 130 million nonfarm payroll jobs in 2003 vs. 156 million today.
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About this article
Andy Kessler is the author of Inside View, a column he writes for The Wall Street Journal on technology and markets and where they intersect with culture. He won the 2019 Gerald Loeb Award for commentary. He is the author of several books including Wall Street Meat and Eat People. He used to design chips at Bell Labs before working on Wall Street for PaineWebber and Morgan Stanley and then as a founder of the hedge fund Velocity Capital.
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