If you didn’t know what a tariff is or what it does, here is a brief description;  the point of a tariff is to institute a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports. (According to Google) The history of the US using tariffs starts with the end of the War for Independence and the War of 1812. Where American industry, mostly in the Northeast at the time had just start up because trading at the time was limited because the British Navy was absolutely annihilating our Atlantic Trade (So I know that Congress authorised the arming of merchant vessels and indeed the American privateers did do a number on British trade as well). Now that the War of 1812 had ended England basically continued to dump cheap exports almost crushing our local manufacturers that had recently started up. They passed two tariff bills; Tariff Act of 1789 to increase revenues for Congress and the Tariff of 1816. “The Tariff of 1816  was the first U.S. tariff passed for protection rather than for revenue.  The purpose was, by taxing foreign imports and thereby raising the prices of foreign goods, American manufactured goods would be cheaper to purchase, which would in turn boost the demand for American made products.  Of course the flip side was that purchasers, particularly farm interests, would be forced to pay higher prices than they had paid for the cheap foreign goods before the tariff.” (According to Historydocor.net ). Of course, because of this happening the issue became one of the most heated economic issues debated in Congress for the next 150 years.

So I just want to say that having tariffs in place isn’t bad unless the rates for said tariffs  get way too high. Then at that point you’re actually killing trade instead of protecting it and that is a horrible thing. So the global market up until 1929 was putting up with the US’ high tariffs for the time because the global market depended on the United States for basically a lot of things; until the breaking point was reached. So WWI ended and the US wanted the debts paid back in full from  Britain and France which they could not pay unless Germany paid them back so it became a disastrous free for all. To make matters even worse the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff raised the tariff to the highest it’s ever been 40% on the import tax. Which literally stopped most trade going around the globe. Which means that there were fewer and fewer ships leaving US harbors to ports in Europe. Fewer exports equals less money in circulation which equals a future economic downturn.

(the economic chain reaction caused England  to raise their interest rates to get back some of the money they kept sending to the United States and then trade slowly stopped and wouldn’t fully recover until the beginning of the second World War.)

(Present Day) President Trump, just because we have a trade deficit DOES NOT MEAN OUR TRADE DEALS ARE BAD SO STOP MESSING AROUND WITH THE TARIFFS. Venezuela,(That’s another article for another day) the worst country in Latin America has a trade surplus and their citizens are starving to death in mass.

Quick Summary of Venezuela right now

1. Has a trade Surplus because they have an income tax rate of 34%
2. The tariffs there are extremely high
3. This causes major consumer problems when trying to bring their products to market (Which they don’t because no one will buy their overpriced products)
4. Starving people rioting because there is no food. (It happens when communist dictator takes over any country)
5. Having such an anti-US policy that the Bolivar becomes worthless because its not backed by the US dollar. (Which resulted in a horrid and complicated exchange rate because every country in the known world has a currency backed by the dollar)
6. Inflation skyrockets which means that money becomes worthless.

So let’s not make economic decisions that Venezuela would make.

President Trump specifically wants to raise the tariffs for steel, however; even though this benefits steel as its own, but the after effects are going to be disastrous. (Everything that uses steel in their product will increase in price).

Thank you all for taking the time out of your day to read this article it means the world to me even if you disagree. (GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU AND HAVE A GREAT DAY)

Sources:

“United States History.” Tariff of 1816: Protecting American Manufacturing, www.u-s-history.com/pages/h973.html.

Google

Crash Course U.S. History

Knowledge Hub

The Daily Wire (The Ben Shapiro Show)

www.dailywire.com/news/28081/watch-reasontvs-stossel-benefits-free-trade-and-frank-camp.