I understand that our exports would be heavily taxed in retaliation but maybe we shouldn't export so much. Why can't we just produce things that we need instead of shipping so much around the globe - it would reduce energy consumption and bring jobs back to the USA because if it becomes less profitable to import items then the only things being sold will be domestic. So, aside from huge corporations creating a stink that their bottom line is shrinking what is wrong with increasing import taxes?
1. Our balance of payments is upside down as it is. Increasing import duties would exacerbate that.
2. We no longer have the industrial capacity to produce many goods as the production of those goods have long been exported. Clothing, furniture, and electronics would be in severely short supply.
3. Costs of goods to consumers would skyrocket.
4. Some US industries depend heavily upon exports of manufactured goods. Heavy construction equipment, medical technology equipment, and railroad locomotives and rolling stock are still heavily produced in the US. The retaliatory duties that would result from high US import duties would cause irreparable harm to those industries.
The US is a signatory on the WTO agreement on tariffs which restricts import duty into the US at about 7% on the average. Disregarding that treaty would isolate the US and turn the economy into something similar to the old Soviet Union.
At 7% or about $100 billion, that may seem to be a lot but the rest of the US economy is taxed at 28% of GDP. Therefore that 7% does little to keep the country going.
Although other industrial countries have a similar import duty, most assist and subsidize businesses. In the US we are so afraid of tax increases that we criticize the government whenever they want to raise taxes to assist or establish businesses in the country.
In other words, we have been conned by wall street executives and conservatives who do absolutely nothing for the economy except stuff their pockets with money as they by move money around creating a fake economy which will eventually collapse.
In this globalized world, no country is an island. If you increase the taxes around your borders, you are making it harder for people to deal with you. And however wonderous and resource rich the US may or may not be, trade allows it to be the #1 economy in the world.
Plus if the US were left to make only what it needed for it's own survival, then you wouldn't be able to make Nukes :-D
They are already ridiculously high. I've bought a few things from overseas and the tariffs are awful. :-(
This was tried in the Great Depression and made that depression much worse. Choking off trade does not revive an economy.