No nation thrives by trying to do everything. That is the arrogance of central planners—the belief that a country, like a god, can will itself into total self-sufficiency. But wealth is not created through self-congratulation. It is created through comparative advantage—through doing what you do best, and trading for the rest.
This is not idealism. It is cold, brutal economics. If China makes textiles more efficiently than America, and America makes aircraft more efficiently than China, then let each specialise. Let each do what it does better at lower opportunity cost, and then trade. That is how both become richer. That is how progress occurs—not through walls, but through exchange.
Tariffs spit in the face of this logic. They say: “No—we will produce everything ourselves, even if it costs more, even if it slows us down, even if it means forcing consumers to pay more for worse goods.” It is a declaration of war on efficiency, on choice, on reason itself.
Thomas Sowell warned us: the first lesson of economics is scarcity. The first lesson of politics is to ignore the first lesson of economics.
Ayn Rand would call tariffs a moral obscenity: the enshrinement of the incompetent, the subsidising of the inefficient by the productive, under the pretence of justice. It is theft made legal by cowardice, masked in the rhetoric of national pride. But pride bought with poverty is not patriotism—it’s delusion.
Tariffs punish the man who builds to reward the man who lobbies. They do not foster competition—they eliminate it. And by doing so, they destroy the very mechanism by which a nation becomes great.
The broken window fallacy shows us the damage we don’t see—the capital never deployed, the trade never made. But comparative advantage shows us what could have been: a world where each individual, each firm, each nation, focuses on its greatest strength and elevates all through mutual benefit.
When we reject that, we reject civilisation. We regress.
So no, tariffs do not strengthen a nation.
Tariffs shackle it.
They do not raise industries.
They preserve their corpses.
They do not punish China. They punish us all—for daring to believe in the freedom to trade, to build, to think.
2/3
S. Tominaga AKA CSW
Apr 7, 2025
https://x.com/CsTominaga/status/1909235354525372739?t=Vl67S5jAnrnkjTYe9NHrkQ&s=19
https://t.me/S_Tominaga/2820
This is not idealism. It is cold, brutal economics. If China makes textiles more efficiently than America, and America makes aircraft more efficiently than China, then let each specialise. Let each do what it does better at lower opportunity cost, and then trade. That is how both become richer. That is how progress occurs—not through walls, but through exchange.
Tariffs spit in the face of this logic. They say: “No—we will produce everything ourselves, even if it costs more, even if it slows us down, even if it means forcing consumers to pay more for worse goods.” It is a declaration of war on efficiency, on choice, on reason itself.
Thomas Sowell warned us: the first lesson of economics is scarcity. The first lesson of politics is to ignore the first lesson of economics.
Ayn Rand would call tariffs a moral obscenity: the enshrinement of the incompetent, the subsidising of the inefficient by the productive, under the pretence of justice. It is theft made legal by cowardice, masked in the rhetoric of national pride. But pride bought with poverty is not patriotism—it’s delusion.
Tariffs punish the man who builds to reward the man who lobbies. They do not foster competition—they eliminate it. And by doing so, they destroy the very mechanism by which a nation becomes great.
The broken window fallacy shows us the damage we don’t see—the capital never deployed, the trade never made. But comparative advantage shows us what could have been: a world where each individual, each firm, each nation, focuses on its greatest strength and elevates all through mutual benefit.
When we reject that, we reject civilisation. We regress.
So no, tariffs do not strengthen a nation.
Tariffs shackle it.
They do not raise industries.
They preserve their corpses.
They do not punish China. They punish us all—for daring to believe in the freedom to trade, to build, to think.
2/3
S. Tominaga AKA CSW
Apr 7, 2025
https://x.com/CsTominaga/status/1909235354525372739?t=Vl67S5jAnrnkjTYe9NHrkQ&s=19
https://t.me/S_Tominaga/2820
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