Thomas Sowell Calls Trump Tariffs ‘a Ruinous Decision’

Robinson: “What do you make of the present president of the United States and his tariffs?”
SOWELL: “It’s painful to see what a ruinous decision from back in the 1920s being repeated. Now, insofar as he’s using these tariffs to get various strategic things settled and — and — and that — and that he is satisfied with that. But if you set off a worldwide trade war that — that has a devastating history, everybody loses because everybody follows suit. And all that happens is that you get a great reduction in international trade. The other is — is — is disturbing in another sense. Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he was president in the 1930s, said that you have to try things. And if — and if — if — if they don’t work, then you admit it, you abandon that, you go on to something else, and you try that until you come across something that — that does work. Now that’s — that’s not a bad approach if you are operating within a known system of rules.”
Robinson: “Mm-hmm.”
SOWELL: “But if you are the one who’s making the rules, then all the other people have no idea what you’re going to do next. And that is a formula for having people hang on to their money until they figure out what you’re going to do. And when a lot of people hang on to their money, you can get results such as you got during the Great Depression of the 1930s. So if this is just a set of short-run ploys for various — various limited objectives, limited in time, fine. Maybe. But if — if this is going to be the policy for four long years that you’re going to try this, you’re going to try that, you’re going to try something else. A lot of people are going to wait. I think what happened in the stock market recently when things came down substantially for — for — for quite a while. And I note that various people are holding on to their — to their money before they do anything because they don’t know where this is going to lead.”