I do not have an economics degree from Boston University, like AOC, and I’m not a professional economist by trade.  I only play one.  Nevertheless, here are five cases for Trump’s tariffs.

1. As we saw last week with his new tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, Trump’s plan is to use tariffs punitively, to alter behavior.

The president-elect said that he would impose the across-the-board tariffs on Day 1 and that they would stay in place until Canada, Mexico and China halted the flow of drugs and migrants.

All three countries have wittingly produced fentanyl (China) or aided in the smuggling and distribution of the drug into the United States.  Trump has committed to the American people that he is going to shut down the border and stop the flow of illegal invaders, and while he, Tom Homan, ICE, and the Border Patrol are going to do our part to affect this outcome, he needs Mexico and Canada to do their part as well.  These tariffs don’t need to go into effect if China, Mexico, and Canada get on board.

2. For at least 30 years, as far as I can recall, our industrial base has been decimated by the offshoring of good paying, low- and medium-skilled, middle-class jobs to China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan, and elsewhere.  The auto industry, steel, textiles, appliances, electronics, and more have moved offshore.  This may have enabled cheaper imports, but it also eliminated many of the middle-class incomes that Americans once relied upon to provide for their families.

We now have a two-tier economic system, where tech moguls, money managers, and athletes and entertainers make really good money, and much of the rest of society is relegated to low-wage service-sector jobs, that offer little to no advancement and barely provide for an individual, let alone a family.

J.D. Vance has seen this play out firsthand — first in his own family and second in his representing the great state of Ohio.

3. Media “experts” are decrying the Trump tariffs and claiming that they are a tax on the American people.  How will Donald Trump square with the American people that his tariffs may increase prices, while he’s simultaneously promised to tame inflation?

“If the costs (of tariffs) are passed on, then customers face a choice: continue buying the (now more expensive) import or switch to buying a domestic alternative (which will cost more than the import pre-tariff).”

Trump’s tariffs could cost the typical U.S. family an additional $2,600 a year due to importers and manufacturers passing the cost of tariffs to consumers, according to an August analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan think tank focused on economic issues.

This will be a balancing act, for sure, but I believe that a couple factors work in Donald Trump’s favor.  First, energy production will lower fuel and heating costs and should place downward pressure on consumer goods as delivery costs are lowered, and second...housing.  Housing prices, whether mortgages or rents, have skyrocketed in recent years, in part due to mortgage interest rates, but more acutely by demand.  Many metropolitan communities will see lessened demand pressure as Donald Trump purges the country of illegal aliens.

4. Consumption.  Americans buy too much cheap junk.  This might require a campaign, but convincing Americans that they don’t need the next iPhone every year, or a third $300 TV, or yet another poorly made $6 crescent wrench, might go a long way toward reducing the demand of cheap imports and increase the demand for fewer, quality-made American products.

5. It is ludicrous that many of the components in our military equipment and America’s infrastructure is made by our greatest adversary — China.  Tax incentives (a sop to our military industrial complex) should be proposed to onshore production of these components here in the U.S.

Donald Trump has surrounded himself with smart people, and he is a smart man himself.  I’m sure he realizes the gamble he’s making on his economic (tariff) policies.  I believe that if managed alongside his other policies, he can maneuver through potential challenges ahead.

Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.