In a free, international market I think we would lose many other industries unless we allowed a free market to exist within the US. Despite trade deals and tariffs, we lost a large segment of the automobile ad steel industries due to excessive regulation and unchecked increases in the costs of labor. In a totally free market wages ad benefits would be set by competition and efficiency. Unfortunately since cronyism is our type of government and economy, imbalances are created that need further intervention to moderate which require further intervention ad infinitum.

Using your analogy, if Chile's plan was to steal/destroy the US aerospace industry and monopolize the field for itself, then I could surely do without their grapes in the winter.

Hmm, whatever happened to those robust US electronics and textile industries? I knew they were laying around here somewhere...

"... even if the other side makes it hard for you to sell to them." As soon as that happens you no longer have free trade or an open market.

It would seem to me that when your trading "partners" smile in your face, but stab you in the back, somewhere along the line you'd better put on some kind of armor before you bleed to death.

Question:
What will happen if a nation unilaterally abolishes the tariff on certain goods currently imported?

Answer:
- Revenue to government goes down.
- The price of those goods goes down.
- Unemployment goes up as imports replace national production.
- Other industries have lower costs, competition drives down prices, sales
are higher, production increase.
- Consumers have more money to spend, the industries with lower costs especially benefit.
- There is higher demand for labor in those and other industries.

That is the logic as I see it, but that is the easy part.
Now, put numbers on those effects and quantify the time delays.

Question 2:
When would you not do that kind of analysis?
(On abolishing or imposing import tariffs)

a) When you know the answer, or think you do.
b) When there are issues of ideals and policy, perhaps an Objectivist (!) or libertarian government considers that tariffs are so bad, and they give too much power to the politicians, that chopping is to be done without asking a team of economists.
c) Or maybe some pure political reason such as giving in to a support base of workers in an ailing industry that, maybe, could be rescued by an import tariff.
Well, personally I do have leanings to b). But, as they say, we must apply pragmatic decisions in the 'real world', so the Donald may be right, or not.

I was thinking more like, Sting causing Bob Dylan's Albums to cost more so people would by Sting's instead.
That is not competition and sure, if American business men were smart, not harmfully regulated or crony connected, they would create a product that is far superior and a "must have", regardless of the tariffs imposed upon the product, but we don't seem to be living in that world anymore.
The UN approved tariffs are meant to create equality of outcome, as I see it.

Sure. Capitalism is a system of market cooperation.. Honda makes motorcycles. Kawasaki makes motorcycles. Kawasaki also makes robots. Honda buys Kawasaki robots which Kawasaki is happy to sell.

Why else would Sting appear at a Bob Dylan concert? Are they not "competitors"? Does not the sale of a Sting album deprive Bob Dylan of income? Never mind the zillionaires. I know punk musicians who play in bars who play with and not with each other.

The cut-throat dog-eat-dog buyer-beware model of capitalism was invented by its enemies. Yes, the market will pass you by. Yes, someone else may take all of your customers just as Amazon is burying Sears right now. But that is not the essential model. Those are secondary consequences, not primary requirements.

We agree on ending tariffs. You said that from the first. Where we disagree is on your "0% to 1000%" program.

Let's say that Chile wants to develop its own rocket launches and puts a tariff on US aerospace products. As President, you repond with a 1000% tariff on Chilean products. Now, I as an American, go without grapes in the winter and the Chilean farmer's life sucks for lack of exports to the USA. Where is the gain?

We agree that the Chilean tariff on US aerospace is wrongful. Where is the profit in going them one worse?

Certainly it lowers the cost of goods for the citizens of the nation. That's good as long as everything else remains equal.

But that isn't the case. If the imported goods, subsidized by the source nation, displace the production of local goods, the people producing those goods will need to find new work. If that work is of lesser compensation, then the benefits of the lower prices may be more than outweighed.

If some of the workers become unemployed and the society subsidizes them in some way that also adds costs. Plus, of course, tariffs are a tax. It might be better to tax foreign goods than locally produced ones.

You cannot simply analyze the benefit of subsidized imports without reflecting on how the economy will change in reaction.

I don't understand the very concept of trade wars. The argument goes "another country is taxing their people wanting to buy US goods. That's no fair. We're going to respond by taxing out people wanting to buy things from your people." I don't see why we don't unilaterally disarm: Let them enjoy the privileged of protecting their industries and not buying our products, and our our people enjoy the right to buy whatever they want with no tariff if they think it's a good deal.

So, you can objectively justify your own self interest buying items from someone that in return, makes your products financially unattractive to buy. Sound like an equatable situation to you? Yet that's what everyone wants but won't reciprocate.

They'd have to be creating a otherwise unattainable super duper product for me to swallow that one.

The point is, everyone spouts on about free trade but few if any are willing to trade freely and we are a little tired of it.

If you want to deal with me, it will only be on an equal basis. I do not accept gifts and I do not charge you for anything that I can not provide on a consistent basis for an ongoing business. If your government dictates your prices and terms it is not up to me to judge if your price/terms are reasonable, only if they are advantageous to me. If you put up barriers to trade with me, maybe there are reasons that we should not be trading partners. These are "agreements" between governments and have NOTHING to do with what is right or wrong. I am for ending tariffs entirely. Everyone would be better off.

Mike, the academic approach is correct in the long run but to be a "change agent" it is sometimes necessary to get down in the mud with the rabble to make a point. In the short run, unless you expect the innocent to pay for the past sins of others, rope-a-dope is not always the best strategy.

You started off right, then went wrong. Free trade and open markets are always good, even if the other side makes it hard for you to sell to them.

As you say: "simple stupid" is right. Your arguments are simply stupid.

What another country (or person) does is irrelevnat. Canada's 270% tariff on US dairy is not a justification for a tariff on Canadian goods. This is a fundamental fact in the array of arguments for an open market society, even (or especially) when surrounded by neighbors with internal anti-market policies.

The lawn guy who supports his family charges $50 for doing the yard. The kid down the street charges $10 for the yard because he is subsidized by his parents. Is that unfair trade?

Would it make sense for the lawn guy not to buy anything at all from the Dad down the street even if the goods or services were a value, because the lawn guy wants to punish Dad with a "tariff" in response to Dad's unfair trade practices in subsidizing Junior's lawn business?

That is the way I understand it and no one in the media knows, talks about nor understands.

Trumpet seems to be pushing them into repentance and if they don't then we won't be buying any of their goods.

Free trade with those that trade freely and no trade with those that won't...simple stupid isn't it?

Purely on the basis of economics, it would be our best interest to eliminate all tariffs. If other countries can produce more efficiently at a lower cost, even at a freight disadvantage, so be it. If they suppress wages, subsidize costs, forego profits, and subsidize their producers so they can sell in our market, they are subsidizing our standard of living and I am for it. Where I find it hard to swallow is when they effectively block efficient US producers from their markets with tariffs while enjoying free access here and hurting our producers. That is why I like the 0% or 1000% option.

Putting ideals/ideology aside,
some published work suggests that if a nation unilaterally eliminates tariffs on imports it will be to its net benefit regardless of what the source nation does.