Title text:
“You legs may have a comparative advantage at running, but we arms have a competitive advantage at swinging hammers, so unless you accept that we’re the dominant limbs and stop hogging the oxygen, that running advantage won’t be around for long.”
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3290/
I came here to start with the exact same first sentence. There is a use case for tariffs: when another country’s prices on a specific item are lower because they pay their people slave wages, a tariff can make the prices on the US version more competitive and encourage people to buy domestically. But Trump is raising prices on things we don’t make or materials we don’t have enough of, and - like the cartoon says - he’s acting like he’s punishing the other countries when he’s only punishing Americans.
Or they’re if cheaper because of subsidies, for example China’s cars.
There are other cases to be made. There are things of stretegic importance you want produced domestically. Trump complains about Canada having tariffs on dairy. Obviously he mischaracterizes it, but there are indeed limitations of the amount of food Canada imports from the US.
We don’t want to become dependent on the US for food. Because we don’t trust the US. For obvious reasons.
I don’t trust the US, and I’m American
The only thing that would punish other countries there is that higher prices here means less people here buy it, which means less sold there.
But it also means less logistics workers and such as well. It’s just a bad deal all around.