Trump’s Tariffs Won’t Work, Just as McKinley’s Didn’t
New research shows how taxing imports a century ago hurt productivity, increased costs and invited corruption.
How much will be subject to tariffs?
Photographer: Apu Gomes/AFP
Donald Trump’s return to the White House means that one of his signature issues will soon return to the center of Washington’s economic policy agenda: tariffs. And while the evidence of their harm continues to grow, which is why economists like me oppose them, economists like me should also admit that tariffs probably matter less than we’d like to think.
Trump has promised to impose stiff tariffs of up to 60% on China, as well as lower tariffs on other trading partners, and some members of the conservative intelligentsia are cheering him on. They make several arguments, but at least one is increasingly tenuous: that 19th century tariffs, which reached 35% in the 1890s, helped build the US into an industrial power.