Phil Gramm and Donald J. Boudreaux write in The Wall Street Journal about the high cost of tariffs.
- There is an increasing pull in both parties to embrace protectionism through tariffs.
- These tariffs not only increase costs for consumers and slow down economic growth, but also stifle environmental progress.
- Free trade allows countries to specialize and create products with a lower carbon footprint.
- Free trade is also responsible for lifting global living standards which is critical to addressing climate change and other environmental issues.
“The high cost of protectionism has been long documented. Surveying research on protections for various U.S. industries from 1950 through 1990, the Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome found that the average annual cost to American consumers per job saved during those four decades was $620,000 (in 2017 dollars). Moving forward a few decades, Peterson Institute economists Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Sean Lowry estimate the price tag for each job saved by President Obama’s tire tariffs at $926,500.”
Read the full article here.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.
