◆The Barbaric Yawp Project

On the Antique Charms of Economic Nationalism My dear Americans, There is something almost endearing about the revival of tariff enthusiasm. It has the air of a Victorian séance — summoning long-deceased economic doctrines in hopes they will perform one last trick. You appear convinced that prosperity is achieved by closing doors. That by taxing imported goods you somehow tax foreign ambition. It is a charming illusion. Tariffs, I regret to inform you, are not paid by abstractions. They are paid by your own consumers and firms. When you raise the price of imports, you raise the cost of living. When you raise the cost of inputs, you lower competitiveness. When you lower competitiveness, you shrink output. You may declare victory in a press conference. But the supply chain will quietly correct you. The idea that trade deficits represent national humiliation is especially touching. A trade deficit means you purchase more from abroad than you sell. It does not mean you have been conquered. It often means your currency is strong and your citizens are affluent. To treat this as defeat is to confuse accounting with warfare. You are not engaged in a medieval siege. You are participating in a global market. If you insist on behaving as though interdependence were weakness, you will discover that isolation is expensive. You cannot tariff automation. You cannot tariff comparative advantage. You cannot tariff technological change. But you can make your own industries less efficient while attempting to do so. There is a particular theatricality in announcing “trade wars.” Wars, at least, are decisive. Trade wars are recursive. You impose a tariff. Your counterpart responds. Exports decline. Markets wobble. Investors retreat. The escalation is celebrated as resolve. The contraction is described as patriotic sacrifice. This may stir applause. It does not expand GDP. I do not deny that certain industries require strategic protection. But strategic is not synonymous with indiscriminate. Nor is it synonymous with emotional satisfaction. Economic nationalism often mistakes visibility for virtue. Factories make excellent backdrops. But photographs do not produce productivity. If your aim is national strength, invest in education, research, and infrastructure. If your aim is rhetorical gratification, impose tariffs and await retaliation. It is always easier to announce barriers than to cultivate competitiveness. The latter demands patience. The former demands only volume. You face a choice between symbolism and arithmetic. Arithmetic is less glamorous. But it compounds. And compounding, unlike applause, does not fade by morning.