Trump wants to use tariffs to force U.S. companies to manufacture their products in the U.S. and U.S. retailers to sell fewer imported products. Apart from the fact that Americans should be free to produce where they want and buy what they want, Trump's authoritarian approach misses the bigger picture as to why domestic manufacturing is no longer viable.
U.S. companies would clearly prefer to manufacture domestically and U.S. retailers would similarly prefer to source their goods locally. The reason they don't is economics. Consumers want low prices, and the only way to satisfy that demand is through imports. Restricting imports does nothing to make domestic production more affordable. It just forces consumers to either pay higher prices for imports or look for domestic alternatives that are less expensive than tariffed imports.
What Trump needs to focus on is why manufacturing in America is so expensive. It's not just labor costs, as at one time the U.S. paid the highest wages in the world, yet still ran trade surpluses. Trump needs to undo what our government has done to cause the problem, rather than addressing the consequences, as that is the only way to solve it. Tariffs, in addition to making Americans less free, will just bring on a new set of problems to compound the ones we already have.
...If he can make Americans to be less consumerist, maybe he can address his trade deficit issue.
...But his politics is attaching blame on others, the other countries for their woes. And so tariff is his weapon to 'make them pay' when it is the Americans who do.
