Steel Products Prices North America
January 27, 2018
When Protectionism is Not About Protecting America at All
Written by John Packard
The following article was written by George F. Will as an opinion piece in the Washington Post. It was originally published on Jan. 26, 2018.
Like Horatius at the bridge, or the boy who stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled, or the Dutch boy who saved the city by putting his finger in the dike — pick your analogous heroism — the Trump administration acted this last week to stanch the flood of foreign-made washing machines that are being imported because Americans want them. The stanching will be accomplished by quotas and stiff (up to 50 percent) tariffs, which are taxes collected at the border and paid by U.S. consumers. Americans also will pay higher prices for washing machines made domestically by Whirlpool, which sought this protectionism, from which it instantly profited: In Monday’s after-hours trading, Whirlpool’s stock rose 3 percent. When protectionism is rampant, no bad deed goes unrewarded.
