Economists have long rendered their own verdict on tariffs

To the editor: President Trump’s tariffs confronted their day in courtroom final week (“Why Trump’s tariff strategy could survive a Supreme Court defeat,” Nov. 7). 9 Supreme Court docket justices will quickly resolve their legality, however economists have lengthy since rendered their verdict on their efficacy (or lack thereof).

The nineteenth century economist Henry George once wrote, “What safety teaches us is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies search to do to us in time of battle.” Few traces higher seize the folly of President Trump’s long-standing romance with tariffs.

Protectionism, George acknowledged, quantities to a self-imposed blockade. If blockades are an efficient technique to strangle an enemy’s economic system, why would we ever voluntarily inflict such hurt on ourselves?

Conservatives as soon as understood this. Ronald Reagan declared that protectionism is “destructionism.” By taxing imports, we don’t punish foreigners. We punish ourselves. That’s not “America first” — it’s financial self-sabotage.

Scott Burns, Baton Rouge, La.