Tariff Tirade

When I'm far from home
Don't call me on the phone
To tell me you're alone
--Billy Idol

Donald Trump unleashed a tweetstorm against Harley Davidson this morning after the company announced that it will move some operations to Thailand in lieu of the president's tariff plans. Of course, Trump did not complain last year when South Korea-based Samsung announced that it would build a $10 billion factory in Wisconsin in part to front run pending tariffs.

To make the theater even more amusing, progressives have suddenly become free market advocates. They are decrying tariffs as taxes that kill jobs. This is, of course, true. But it comes from the same group of people that has no problem levying other forms of taxes that kill jobs. And that has no problem interfering with markets in other ways (e.g., minimum wage laws) that similarly drive jobs elsewhere.

Trump's tariff tirade and the associated hypocrisy of others once again demonstrate human tendency to recognize the negative effects of market intervention in the politics of others but not in their own.