It is worthwhile to read this article given that tariffs appear to be on the Trump agenda.  I had thought that tariffs were a legitimate tool to use against countries that encourage the violation of patents  and copyrights, but a quick read of the article reminds me that the proper way to deal with counterfit goods is to seize them and go after the thieves.

I think that describing China as having a nation of slaves who cannot compete is off-base. Chinese people in general are very entrepreneurial and value education a lot. Thomas Sowell wrote quite a bit about this, probably in Race and Culture. For instance, there are a lot of very-educated and entrepreneurial Chinese in Silicon Valley.

I think we are being misdirected by the argument that such and such a country (Cuba... China, etc.) violates individual rights to such a degree, or in such a way, that we should not trade with them - that there should be a legal sanction against their slave labor, for example.  But this is our government telling us that we cannot trade with some other person or organization because of their government.  Our rights are being violated.  It is our desire to purchase what they are selling, or sell to someone over there that is being denied.   Our government should not be trying to influence the behavior of other governments except to defend our rights - not the rights of their citizens.

We, as individuals, don't have a right to buy stolen goods, like a fake Apple iPhone made in China, and our government can seize those phones and go after the specific parties to such a deal, but that's so regardless of where the phones are made (eg., China, Mexico, or Texas).  What makes this prohibition moral is that it is a protection of Apple's rights (an American company).

It should only be permissible for our government to block trade with an entire nation if we have declared war on that nation. 

Anyway, that's how I parse it.

This is an excellent article.  What I'm noting below is only a few minor quibbles and random thoughts.

In the article, Ed writes:

If a foreign country imposes a tariff on our products, our best response is not to retaliate at all. In fact, we should drop all tariffs and increase imports of the products of the offending nation. Foreigners in that country would then have a lot of paper dollars that they could use to purchase our products. We would have real foreign-made consumer goods in our possession, but would only be giving up paper currency.

I'm a bit uncomfortable with a couple of statements.  Mind you, these are just quibbles.  Saying that 'we' should increase imports of the products of a nation that has established tariffs, is a bit confusing because 'we' could mean that individuals should buy more... but shouldn't individuals just follow their economic self-interest?  Or does 'we' somehow refer to the government or nation as a whole, which I don't understand. 

Also, Ed mentions that the result of us buying a lot from them would mean they would have lots of our currency and Ed says, that would only be giving up paper currency.  But, any currency, absent  hyper-inflation, is a very valuable store of value and worth what it will buy.  (These are just quibbles because I completely agree with Ed's conclusions)

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Ed mentions that tariffs cause a misallocation of resources.  That's an important thought, and one you don't hear elsewhere.  Economics is very much about the use of changes in supply and demand and price as information - information that is used to alter decisions.  A tariff is like a trick on the economy where there is an increase in price, but it was not caused by any change in supply and demand.  Like politics, where the two most basic factors are choice and force, the same two basic factors exist at the root of economics.  When government intrudes with taxes or regulations they have used force to block choice and the allocation of resources isn't what it would otherwise have been.