Tariffs on target

Trump takes on unfair Chinese trade practices

President Donald Trump is keeping his promises on trade, and that is good for democracy and good for the people of Pittsburgh, Toledo, Cleveland, Youngstown and many small towns in America in the socalled flyover areas — places devastated by the trade policies of the last 30 years, and pretty much ignored by Washington.

Last week the president proved that his seriousness about trade includes China. He said he will impose a possible 25 percent tariff on many Chinese imports into the United States.

There is no question that many of the goods produced in the forgotten parts of America, by heretofore forgotten people, were supplanted by goods manufactured in China — goods that entered the U.S. more or less freely, with few tariffs attached. Those forgotten people are the ones who voted for Mr. Trump in November 2016, responding to his message of economic nationalism.

The theory behind Mr. Trump’s action is that if the prices on Chinese imports of shoes, clothing and consumer electronics are raised by tariffs, American-made products will again become competitive and manufacturing in the United States will revive and broaden. More Americans in some of those forgotten places will then become fully employed and our unfavorable trade balance, now standing at nearly $400 billion per year with China, will improve.

This approach also constitutes a gamble. The switch to American-produced goods from Chinese imports may well raise the prices of these items, initially taking money out of ordinary Americans’ pockets. And some American manufacturers may not respond by reintroducing production. Depending on the character of Chinese retaliation, our tariffs could result in significant tariffs on

goods exported to China, including aircraft, automobiles, cotton, sorghum and soybeans.

Another element in Mr. Trump’s attempt to relevel the playing field in U.S. trade relations with China is an effort to reduce Chinese theft of American-developed technology. Some of this “transfer” is simply an inevitable result of trade in goods and services. A U.S. company “X” wants to invest in China, so it goes there with its technology. The Chinese scoop up that technology as a price of allowing the U.S. company to operate in its economy. America did that to British companies as the industrial revolution made its way across the Atlantic. But some of what occurs with U.S. technology in China is considerably less benign than that, including hacking.

Exceptions to the president’s previously announced new tariffs of 25 percent — on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum — have now been granted to some 34 countries, including the entire European Union, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and South Korea. So the Trump tariffs are clearly being used as a scalpel, not a butcher knife — and for negotiation, not a trade war.

Advantages previously afforded China when it was still a developing country are no longer appropriate now that it is one of the two largest economies in the world. China is our rival, a fairly ruthless one, and we must face that reality squarely. We must maintain decent relations with China, but America must come first. For the first time in a long time, our workers are being counted for more than an open China trade policy. The change is long overdue.