Awhile back I noted that protectionism in the form of increased tariffs was inevitable and that other nations would soon be applying import and export duties on goods to protect their own manufacturing, and we should be doing the same.

The argument against that practice is that it stifles world trade, which damages economies. This is reasonable, to a point. If you stop buying doohickies from Bulgaria, and start making them yourself because you’ve raised the cost at the dock of Bulgarian doohickies beyond what you can make them for at home, then the Bulgarians lose business and income and you have less money to spend after buying your doohickey.

The flip side of that is that much of what we export is not sold at home for less because we can sell it for more overseas. So that raises the price here at home. If EXPORT duties are levied on these items, that the overseas customer has to pay, more will stay at home and be available to us.

Greed is what wrecks economies, not tariffs and duties. Greed is behind turning over most of our manufacturing to China and letting our own manufacturing companies starve to death. Import duties on Chinese goods would have prevented that but were blocked in the interest of profit.

Now that the global economy is crashing down, the need to maintain at least some of their former prosperity is driving governments to start applying tariffs at last. Paraguay has announced that it will apply tariff related measures on imports from Argentina and Brazil to protect local industry, in retaliation for Argentina and Brazil setting up a whole network of barriers to Paraguayan goods.

The Miinistries in Vietnam recommended that the Government increase import tariffs on 15 dairy products to protect dairy farmers to keep locally produced milk competitive with imported milk.

According to Mr GK Pillai Indian Commerce Secretary of India, India government will impose new import tariffs on Chinese aluminum. This is to protect the scrap metals industry in India.

Seeking to protect their beleaguered biodiesel industry, European governments on Tuesday backed a plan to impose provisional tariffs on U.S. biodiesel producers like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, European Union diplomats said.

In Europe, South America, the Near East and Far East, tariff wars have begun. It’s starting out small, with a whisper rather than a roar, and we’ll have to wait and see if the volume grows. I’m betting that it will. Every manufacturing nation needs to protect their manufacturers, who are the bedrock foundation of that nations prosperity. That’s all that “protectionism” really does and all the yelling that it will destroy global free trade is just noise from those whose greed has brought us to this. Global trade will always go on, only perhaps now it may end up being fairer and more equitable.

One of the biggest failures of Free Trade is the greed made possible by it, that has brought so many shoddy and dangerous products into other countries, and mostly from China. Shrimp and fish farmed in heavily polluted water. Watered-down milk contaminated with melamine to imitate protein content, that killed 1000s of children. Rohypnol, or “roofie” date rape drug in the coating on infants toys that they then stick in their mouths. Lead in the paint on childrens toys. In the rush for profit, quality controls are abandoned by the profiteers, to our great and ultimate sorrow.

Goods that are made here at home are always of better quality because of our laws, and similar foreign goods can be compared with our own ONLY if we make their counterparts. When everything comes from overseas, there’s nothing to compare it to and we’re stuck with what’s offered. Everbody loses except the profiteers.

Bring on the tariff wars. Bring back our manufacturing.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 4:38 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.