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Comment by melling | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, you’re telling us the tariffs won’t work and people don’t agree with them. How about we back up and discuss the degree to which China is or is not being fair in trade.

Elon Musk, for example, wants certain tariffs because China has a 25% tariff:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/08/elon-musk-sides-with-trump-o...

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Sure, they're good for his business. Tariffs are generally good for the industries they protect, at the expense of consumers, because prices will rise in that industry. So one industry and it's employees receive protection from foreign competition, but consumers "pay for it" on the backend with higher prices.

I’m sure what Elon really wants is a level playing field. He’d rather simply have China remove its 25% tariff.

He doesn’t want Chinese consumers to have to pay more for his cars.

And as we all know, higher prices means fewer goods and services for all.

That's a one-dimensional view. We are not only consumers. We're also laborers, and citizens of a nation. If every other nation has tariffs, and the U.S. doesn't, then it's not a level playing field and industry and capital will leave, as we have seen. It's important to national security that the U.S. maintains its manufacturing base, and personally, I'd rather pay a little more for American goods if that means the working class doesn't descend into poverty, which is costly in other ways.

Maybe understanding what MFN status https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_favoured_nation means would help resolve arguments like this. Of course US is free to set tariffs at a level it sees fit (in accordance with its international agreements) as long as such tariffs apply to all trading partners (who are WTO members).

I'm not telling you whether tariffs are good or bad. I'm just telling you what I expect most economists think about it.

Out of his own pure interest..

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