They will tell you tariffs help. That they’re protective, just, corrective—a patriotic tax wrapped in nationalist poetry. But tariffs are not the solution. They are the illusion of control, the lie of value creation through restriction. They are the broken window fallacy writ large across borders and industries. Bastiat saw it in the glazier’s glass; we see it now in the steel mill’s forced demand.
When you break a window, you create the illusion of economic activity. The glazier is paid, the glass replaced. But the money spent repairing what once worked is money that cannot be used to build, to invest, to innovate. The shopkeeper is poorer, though he does not feel it immediately. What is seen is the glazier at work. What is unseen is the vanished opportunity.
A tariff is the same lie.
The government imposes a cost—an artificial barrier. The consumer pays more for the same good, or settles for something worse. The inefficient producer is rewarded, not through merit, but through favour. The market is distorted. Choices shrink. Prices rise. But the real theft occurs in silence: the business not started, the innovation not funded, the wealth never created.
Thomas Sowell reminds us: "There are no solutions, only trade-offs." Tariffs are a trade-off made by those who do not bear the cost. The benefits are concentrated and loud—factories cheered, jobs "saved." But the costs are diffuse and invisible. The consumer pays more. The economy grows slower. And the efficient producer, who could have competed globally, is told to sit down and wait.
Ayn Rand would say this: tariffs reward weakness and punish excellence. They are moral treason—the sacrifice of the productive to the politically connected. When a state declares it will protect an industry, it is confessing it has chosen mediocrity over greatness. It is saying: "We will make everyone poorer, so a few can feel powerful."
Trade is not charity. It is the voluntary exchange between two parties who both benefit. It is the economic expression of liberty. A tariff is not a price—it is a punishment. It is what happens when a government inserts itself between two willing creators and demands a toll for the privilege of building something.
They will point to stock markets, to quarterly data, to visible plants reopening. They will not show you the millions of micro-decisions—the capital withheld, the products not purchased, the risks not taken—because of higher prices and tighter margins.
The real damage of a tariff is not seen in charts. It is seen in what never comes to be.
And so, we must be clear:
Tariffs do not build—they destroy.
They do not protect—they extract.
They do not hurt China—they hurt the Chinese people.
And worst of all, they hurt us.
1/3
S. Tominaga AKA CSW
Apr 7, 2025
https://x.com/CsTominaga/status/1909235354525372739?t=Vl67S5jAnrnkjTYe9NHrkQ&s=19
https://t.me/S_Tominaga/2820
When you break a window, you create the illusion of economic activity. The glazier is paid, the glass replaced. But the money spent repairing what once worked is money that cannot be used to build, to invest, to innovate. The shopkeeper is poorer, though he does not feel it immediately. What is seen is the glazier at work. What is unseen is the vanished opportunity.
A tariff is the same lie.
The government imposes a cost—an artificial barrier. The consumer pays more for the same good, or settles for something worse. The inefficient producer is rewarded, not through merit, but through favour. The market is distorted. Choices shrink. Prices rise. But the real theft occurs in silence: the business not started, the innovation not funded, the wealth never created.
Thomas Sowell reminds us: "There are no solutions, only trade-offs." Tariffs are a trade-off made by those who do not bear the cost. The benefits are concentrated and loud—factories cheered, jobs "saved." But the costs are diffuse and invisible. The consumer pays more. The economy grows slower. And the efficient producer, who could have competed globally, is told to sit down and wait.
Ayn Rand would say this: tariffs reward weakness and punish excellence. They are moral treason—the sacrifice of the productive to the politically connected. When a state declares it will protect an industry, it is confessing it has chosen mediocrity over greatness. It is saying: "We will make everyone poorer, so a few can feel powerful."
Trade is not charity. It is the voluntary exchange between two parties who both benefit. It is the economic expression of liberty. A tariff is not a price—it is a punishment. It is what happens when a government inserts itself between two willing creators and demands a toll for the privilege of building something.
They will point to stock markets, to quarterly data, to visible plants reopening. They will not show you the millions of micro-decisions—the capital withheld, the products not purchased, the risks not taken—because of higher prices and tighter margins.
The real damage of a tariff is not seen in charts. It is seen in what never comes to be.
And so, we must be clear:
Tariffs do not build—they destroy.
They do not protect—they extract.
They do not hurt China—they hurt the Chinese people.
And worst of all, they hurt us.
1/3
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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