President Donald Trump at a Whirlpool manufacturing facility in Ohio, Aug. 2020.
Photo: Scott Olson/Getty ImagesEconomists have reacted poorly to Donald Trump’s recent proposal for a 10% tariff on all imports.
After all, tax revenue is necessary to provide public services, and tariffs have long proved an effective way to collect it.
In 1789, the first law in the first Congress—advocated by Alexander Hamilton, introduced by James Madison and signed by George Washington on the Fourth of July—established a tariff not unlike Trump’s.
For much of the nation’s history, while growing from colonial backwater to continent-spanning industrial colossus, the U.S. imposed some of the world’s highest tariffs, which were the primary means of funding the federal government.
Persons:
Donald Trump, Scott Olson, Donald Trump’s, Adam Posen, Michael Strain, —, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Washington
Organizations:
Getty, Peterson Institute for International Economics, American Enterprise Institute
Locations:
Ohio, U.S