I'm, in principle, a "buy local" guy. I'd rather go to The Mill than Starbucks for my overpriced caffeinated beverages for example. For years I worked for a locally-owned grocery store chain. When the national and regional chains started showing up in Lincoln, the company made much of their local roots, spotlighting that Hy-Vee was Iowa-owned, Walmart was Arkansas-owned and Trader Joe's was "Germany-owned". At the time I commented to the company president that people will only switch to our stores if we were better than the others, not because we were a local company. People will look out for their own best interests, and if that means shopping at the lower-priced Arkansas mega-retailer or the cool German-owned-with-the-California-vibe store rather than the local store, then they will. The same goes for "buying American". People will continue to buy foreign cars if they are priced right and are of adequate quality as long as they perceive that they're getting a better deal than with the American car manufacturers.
So we have two competing priorities: do we force people to buy American, thus supporting American business and jobs while simultaneously causing prices to go up, putting a burden on consumers, or do we allow unfettered free trade, allowing consumers to choose the best deal, while imperiling American businesses? The problem with tariffs supporting American businesses is that any lower-priced competitors are pushed out of the market, compelling consumers, which are sometimes other businesses, to pay higher prices. In the current example we will see some revitalization of the steel and aluminum industries, but what about car companies, which utilize steel in their manufacturing? What about the numerous other companies that use steel? They have now been saddled with higher costs which will either result in higher prices for their products, layoffs, or both. Everything is connected. You can't isolate the US steel industry, take action to prop it up, and believe that there will be no downstream effects.
This is not to ignore that, in some cases, the prices of foreign goods are kept artificially low due to government supports and subsidies and that products are dumped into the US market below cost with the goal of driving domestic competitors out of business. This is not unheard of: how many local businesses did Walmart cause to go belly-up by undercutting their prices? On the other hand, consider how many businesses learned to adapt, becoming leaner and more efficient in order to battle Walmart. In this case a punitive tariffs might be in order. Sometimes foreign goods are cheaper due to lower labor costs. In all cases, targeted tariffs would make more sense. This is why we have trade agreements. We negotiate with individual nations or groups of nations; agreements may favor one segment of the economy while disfavoring others. NAFTA is an example of this - manufacturing and the attendant jobs moved to Mexico to take advantage of the reduced labor costs while agriculture benefited due to expanded markets. A good trade treaty benefits all sides; it's easy, however to pick aspects of a treaty and paint it as "unfair" when taken out of context of the rest of the treaty.
Trump talks a lot about the trade deficit that we have with many nations. (He also talks about trade deficits that we have with countries that we actually have trade surpluses with). A trade deficit can be a bad thing. Consistently buying more than we sell can be an indication that we have a weak manufacturing sector. It's unclear which is the cart and which is the horse in this metaphor though. A large trade imbalance also means that non-Americans are holding large amounts of dollars, which, if they are sold in quantity, could result in a devaluing of the dollar, making it costlier to purchase imports.
But Trump talks about a trade deficit as if we are losing money. Every dollar of a trade deficit represents a dollar's worth of goods or services that someone or some business in the US purchases. It is not money flowing out of the country. It's a complicated subject that cannot be reduced to sound bites, memes or applause lines at campaign events. Trump is ignorant about most subjects that one would expect a president to be conversant in; he is resistant to advice from people who are conversant, even expert in these subjects. He doesn't understand economics, but he does understand people and how to push their buttons and play on their ignorance to garner the applause, support and adulation, and eventually votes.
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