An alternative tariff plan

I wasn’t born in the US so I can’t be president, and it seems like a pretty dangerous job anyway. However, here’s what I would do with tariffs if I was in charge:

1) Go through the domestic supply/demand data and identify every item where supply is greater than demand and vice versa.

2) On items where domestic demand > supply, decide if that item is critical to the US. Copper for example, yes. Sneakers on the other hand, no. Does this mean that a committee is choosing what things are ‘critical’, yes, but since I’m in charge I won’t be swayed by lobbyists.

3) For items deemed critical to the US, offer a tax incentive to any producer who invests in increased production until domestic supply = domestic demand. For example, any company wanting to build an aluminium smelter in the US will not pay federal income tax on that production while the US is in a supply deficit. However, if the producer exports any of that material, income taxes will apply. Taxes can be phased out incrementally to ensure that production remains viable and investment is viewed on a long term basis.

4) Propose a blanket like for like trade deal with every country globally. If a country wants 0% tariffs to send product to the US, they must reciprocate the same rates for US imports to their country. If a country wants to have import tariffs, the US will reciprocate with equal tariffs. Genuinely equal tariffs, not ones that are calculated by Chat GPT using some nonsense formula.

Is this perfect, of course not. Will some industries benefit and others moan, yes. Does the US still need to fix its overwhelming borrowing and spending problems, definitely.

But it’s a relatively simple solution that would give some long term confidence to the markets and you can’t really say it’s unfair. The US is encouraging domestic production without taxing its own citizens for products they literally cannot source domestically.