US farmers helpless as TPP boosts Australia, Canada

[pbrower2a]

American farmers are the people most likely to get burned in a tariff war. Farmers provide much of the material export of the United States. They are selling price-sensitive commodities, and if other countries are putting tariffs on American goods, then farmers are practically helpless.

Nobody really wins a trade war except for some speculators, smugglers, and the political opponents of those who start trade wars. Tariffs themselves are taxes -- bad taxes. The only rationale for a tariff is that tariffs fall heavily on consumers who have above-average incomes in an underdeveloped economy and who have more connections overseas than to the traditional subsistence economy. That applies to no country even in the early stages of industrial development, let alone fully-modern economies. An advanced economy might better rely upon income, property, and sales/use taxes.

The Smoot-Hawley tariff was an economic disaster; it might have aided Democratic victories from 1930 to 1936 (four Congressional elections and two Presidential elections) and sealed the political doom of Herbert Hoover. It may have also facilitated the rise of the Antichrist in Germany.