We pass all these struct labor and environmental rules in the US, then just import goods made with far worse labor and environmental treatment. This is why we need high tariffs.
Trying to do that with tariffs creates a situation where only domestic companies are able to break the rules--which of course they're going to do domestically. I don't want to buy things that are harming Cambodia, but substituting them with things that are harming America is not any better.
If we are considering domestic companies that are willing to break the law, neither tariffs nor regulations works. A company can smuggle to bypass tariffs, and they can ignore regulations.
It's just nice because it's verifiable at any point in the supply chain without requiring oversight at every point. You'd only have to pay for the sequencing:
- when adding a new cultivar to the list of ones that are legal to sell
- during sting operations
The threat of being fined/jailed should be enough to get the market to police itself. No need to add bureaucracy in the middle.
I guess it’s a dead horse though since clearly this kind of cognitive dissonance has handed all branches of US government to those advocating for tariffs and the same populist sentiment is well on its way in the EU.