Why the U.S. Should Drop All Tariffs

President Trump has announced tariffs on $50 billion of imports from China, $34 billion of which will come into effect on July 6, saying it will force that country to be a better trading partner. China, not surprisingly, said it would slap $50 billion of its own tariffs on American goods in response, to which Mr. Trump threatened to raise the stakes by another $200 billion.

On trade, the president has been all over the place. One day he threatened to impose tariffs on our NATO allies on national-security grounds. Another day, he exempted these allies from the tariffs. A few weeks later, he changed his mind.

The United States should stop the scattershot, pointless nonsense on tariffs and go the other way, and hard: It should drop all tariffs, even if the rest of the world doesn’t follow.

Continue reading