“”I think a global tariff is the right way to do things,” Cass said. “It’s a very simple, broad policy that conveys a value that we see in domestic production.”
That is, more or less, the view that the White House adopted during the first year of Trump’s second term: Making stuff in America matters, and the best way to encourage more production in America is to make it more expensive to import anything made somewhere.
Of course, there are two major flaws with that logic. First, there are things that can’t be made in America—or can’t be made here in sufficient quantities to satisfy Americans’ demand. Coffee, chocolate, bananas, and many other agricultural products, for example.
Second, making things in America often requires importing raw materials or intermediate goods. More than 50 percent of all American imports are unfinished goods that are used to make other things, from cars to houses to industrial pumping equipment and chocolate bars. If all those materials are suddenly more expensive, it becomes harder, not easier, to manufacture more things here.”