A few days ago President Trump put temporary tariffs on washing machines and solar panels as a response to years of complaints from American manufacturers about unfair competition and dumping by foreign companies. The Wall Street Journal and others derided the tariffs as anti-trade, protectionist and bad for consumers.

(Samsung announced a $50 price increase due to the tariff, but also a new plant in Tennessee.)

Maybe a closer look at what is going on is in order.

it is actually illegal to dump or to sell below cost in order to destroy competition. According to Wikipedia:

Predatory pricing (also undercutting) is a risky and dubious pricing strategy where a product or service is set at a very low price, intending to drive competitors out of the market or create barriers for potential new competitors. Theoretically if competitors or potential competitors cannot sustain equal or lower prices without losing money, they go out of business or choose not to enter the business. The so-called predatory merchant then theoretically has fewer competitors or is even a  de facto monopoly.

Nowadays predatory pricing is considered anti-competitive in many jurisdictions and is illegal under competition laws.

For example if Exxon decided it wanted to price out smaller competitors, it could come into a town and sell gasoline for 50 cents a gallon until the smaller dealers were bankrupted.  Should Exxon be stopped or would the WSJ and others say that stopping them would be protective, anti-free market and bad for consumers?  The answer, of course, is Exxon should be stopped because while it would be good for consumers in the short run it would be extremely bad in the long run because you would end up with a monopoly and no competition.

Therefore, shouldn't companies from China and elsewhere be punished if they sell products in the U.S if they sell below cost which harms U.S competitors? 

If anyone wants to see a good example of how bad anti-competitive practices are for the economy and consumers they should look no further than Obamacare.  The 2,000-plus page law, with many new taxes, massive new mandates and thousands of regulations was written intentionally to limit choice, reduce competition and raise prices even though the public was told the opposite. The goal of Obama and others was always to get to single payer government run health care and they knew the public wouldn’t accept that. The law specifically limited providers’ ability to underwrite risk and it took away lifetime and annual limits. Obviously small and medium-sized companies couldn’t handle this and dropped out of the market. As fewer providers survived,  premiums, out-of-pocket expenses and deductibles skyrocketed and the cries for single payer got louder which was the goal in the first place.

It would be extremely harmful for consumers and the U.S. economy as a whole if we ended up with few banks, few oil companies, few phone companies and especially if we end up with one health care provider, the powerful, money hungry government.

The media also derided Trump for pulling out of the Trans-Pacific partnership, calling him an anti-trade nationalist but Trump and his team know that large trade deals are hard to fix and monitor. I have not seen any indication that other countries won’t deal with us and that we won’t deal with them after we pulled out. In fact as Trump has reduced cumbersome regulations and taxes we have seen a lot of foreign activity.

Of course Trump was always ripped continuously and called naïve or a liar when he said tax cuts to corporations would trickle through the economy. When will journalists, Pelosi, Schumer, Warren and Durbin admit they were wrong? The answer is obviously never because there is an agenda to push, an election coming up and facts haven’t mattered for a long time.

189 companies in three weeks (that people know of) have given bonuses, raises, increased donations, increased benefits and announced investments because of the corporate tax cuts that journalists and other Democrats repeatedly told us that corporations wouldn't share with their employees.

The following list shows just 10 out of the 189 as a sample.

Here’s a comprehensive list of companies and what they’re offering employees, post-tax cut, courtesy of Strategas Partners, Americans for Tax Reform and original reporting. Industries range from airlines to wineries, promising everything from $1,000 bonuses to planting more vines.

1.      1st Summit Bank: $1k bonuses to full-time employees; salary raises; increased charitable donations

2.      AAON: $1k bonuses for 2,000 employees

3.      AccuWeather: Year-end bonuses for 450-500 employees

4.      Advance Financial: increase in 401(k) match

5.      Aflac (AFL): Increase 401(k) match from 50% to 100% on the first 4% of compensation plus a one-time $500 contribution to every employee’s 401(k)

6.      Alaska Airlines: $1k bonuses for 22,000 employees

7.      Amarillo National Bank: $1k bonuses for 313 employees

8.      American Airlines (AAL): $1k bonuses for ~127,600 employees

9.      American Bank: $1k bonuses for 60 employees

10.  American Community Bank & Trust: $500 bonuses to all employees, hiring more employees