Tariffs also bring economic stability, higher wages for the middle class, and an increased amount of competition.
They also enable small businesses to compete with multi-nationals.
It's a complicated issue that will vary a lot for different areas. We had a healthy self-sustaining and diverse market. My country is lucky enough to have all the resources, manpower, and education that we need to provide for ourselves and have a surplus.
Free trade has brought an end to that. Wages stagnated and the manufacturing industry collapsed. The new opportunities that were promised never materialized. We ship out almost all the resources we gather to fuel the manufacturing industry of other nations.
The wealthy got wealthier, and the middle class shrank.
local businesses charging a lot of money to offer really poor quality products
Why was there no competition?
If you're in a position where your area must rely on imports, then free trade is great.
But it encourages slavery when used indiscriminately. It also makes developing new local industries difficult.
It's a complicated issue that will vary a lot for different areas. We had a healthy self-sustaining and diverse market. My country is lucky enough to have all the resources, manpower, and education that we need to provide for ourselves and have a surplus.
Free trade has brought an end to that. Wages stagnated and the manufacturing industry collapsed. The new opportunities that were promised never materialized. We ship out almost all the resources we gather to fuel the manufacturing industry of other nations.
The wealthy got wealthier, and the middle class shrank.
> local businesses charging a lot of money to offer really poor quality products
Why was there no competition?
If you're in a position where your area must rely on imports, then free trade is great.
But it encourages slavery when used indiscriminately. It also makes developing new local industries difficult.
Why was there no competition?
A long long history of really bad governments. Most of the industries either went bankrupt decades ago or switched to importing and stamping their brand on chinese products. Most chose to import parts and only do the most basic assembling here so they can put a "Made in Argentina" stamp on it
> Why was there no competition?
A long long history of really bad governments. Most of the industries either went bankrupt decades ago or switched to importing and stamping their brand on chinese products. Most chose to import parts and only do the most basic assembling here so they can put a "Made in Argentina" stamp on it
We had that a while ago. Some multi-nationals pulled out and we were left with local businesses charging a lot of money to offer really poor quality products. It did bring higher wages for the middle class and reduced unemployment rates but most of the local companies had a monopoly over whatever product they manufactured and started selling crap at higher prices. Couple that with the ridiculous taxes we have there and that they were even applying tariffs to products that weren't even manufactured in this country (like most electronics).
imho that was not the best way to do it, but we're certainly worse off now after tariffs were lowered