Punishing China or Punishing Americans?

Romney is pledging on his first day in office to designate China a currency manipulator. This is something that even Bush and Obama were not dumb enough to do. This could lead to tariffs to punish China. But who would really be punished? Punishing tariffs would ultimately harm Americans because of higher prices on imported goods and/or less product availability. Of course, unions love tariffs on imported goods as much as they love extortion and violence (see any of Tom DiLorenzo’s articles on unions on the LRC and Mises Institute websites).

N.B. I am not a fan of Communism, the Chinese government, or China’s “one child” policy. But punishing Americans is not the solution to any of these things.

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6:00 pm on October 16, 2012