Foreign Affairs - 11.2019 - 12.2019

The Progressive Case Against Protectionism

November/December 2019 115

decit. Instead, policymakers are moving in the opposite direction: the

budget decit has swelled in recent years, especially after the 2017 tax

cuts. The new U.S. taris, meanwhile, have done nothing to improve

the trade decit. That came as no surprise to economists.

THE PRICE OF PROTECTIONISM

As easily debunked as these myths about trade are, they clearly have a

powerful hold on policymakers. That is troubling not merely for what

it re­ects about the state o€ public discourse; it also has profound real-

world implications. As they lambast trade, politicians are increasingly

reaching for protectionist policies. Yet for American workers, such

measures only add insult to injury, making their lives even more

precarious. They do so in four distinct ways.

First and foremost, taris act as regressive taxes on consumption.

Although the Trump administration likes to claim that foreigners pay

the price o€ taris, in truth, the costs are passed along to consumers,

who must pay more for the imports they buy. (By this past spring,

the cost o€ the trade war that began in 2018 exceeded $400 per

year for the average U.S. household.) Beyond that, taris fall dis-

proportionately on the poor, both because the poor consume more

The price is right: in a supermarket in Baltimore, Maryland, July 2018

ANDREW MANGUM

/ THE

NEW

YORK

TIMES

/ REDUX

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