To the editor:
Edwin Woolsey provided valuable, informative comments about tariffs in his commentary, “Trouble with tariffs, a historical perspective” published in the April 19 Quill.
There is more that can be said. Mr. Woolsey pointed out the cost of returning industry to the U.S., but did not mention that the process of rebuilding the industrial infrastructure and the time it would take make the benefit from the process something that would be years in the making.
Also, we depend every day on items that we buy at WalMart: summer produce in winter imported from South America; parts to repair our cars imported from Canada; pharmaceuticals; most of which are manufactured overseas; clothing from Vietnam, Cambodia and China; and many other products we use every day. The percentage of cost increase will equal the percentage of increased tariff and this will show up as current inventories are sold out.
In addition, many countries are simply pulling out of U.S. markets. Tourism from Canada has dropped 60% already and the greatest number of tourists from any single country visiting the USA is from Canada.
The USA is only 4.3% of the world population. They don't need our markets. They don't need any of the disruptions they experience because of our tariffs. So, to restore manufacturing would take years, and as Mr. Woolsey pointed out, the cost of items produced here will go up soon because of tariffs, and later because of our production costs. Losing those connections to foreign markets will nail it down.
There is no way dramatically increasing tariffs won't result in dramatically increasing costs to consumers.
I repeat, these tariff policies will dramatically increase costs to consumers.
