It's easy to laugh at Europe to rely on US defense, but we are facing the same predicament. Outsources important elements of military weapons overseas. Trump's tariffs may help bring them back home.
Tariffs are not simply a way to repatriate and rebuild American industrial power. It is also a tool to rebuild America's military self-sufficiency. The miserable amounts of our important military components are not produced domestically, and the United States is dangerously dependent on foreign countries, including enemies like China. The way some war hawks go to war with the Chinese to protect Taiwan while we still rely on them for material to burn war machinery is almost comical.
HomeBring your American military supply chain and use tariffs to get it done.
“Principle Free Traders” argue that “customer duties are taxes on consumers,” and support offshore manufacturing in order to reduce consumer costs. But the crack in the “free trade” debate becomes clear as American taxpayers are making bills higher from Hawkish's policy than Trump's tariffs.
There are other “taxes on consumers.”
Defense expenditure
Every cent heading towards American defense is part of the taxpayer burden. The US annual defense budget is around $850 billion, costing about $2,500 per US residents, but this number is much higher given that not all residents pay taxes in reality. Eliminating defence spending can provide a large tax credit for consumers.
Shouldn't they advocate to eliminate defensive spending if “free traders” are consistent with their arguments? Although extreme, this example illustrates the contradiction of the “no-qualified tax” argument for customs duties.
If tariffs are taxes on consumers, they are taxes that also support our national defense and independence. The tariffs required for America to be industrially self-sufficient to procure war machinery domestically is similar to opposing permanent resident forces.
Funding for foreign wars
What St. spent sending ammunition to Ukraine is taxing US consumers. Ask a typical American if he asks if much of his money is heading towards rebuilding American manufacturing through tariffs, or if he will go to the Ukrainian war effort killing a generation of men. Typical Americans would prefer the former, but we are engaged in the latter.
Deficit spending
Consumers pay massive federal deficits through inflation, or cruel and direct taxes on consumers. Whether it's foreign aid, household waste, or other free government projects, every penny in deficit spending is a tax paid to consumers in the form of inflation. Most Americans would prefer tariffs that produce over ideologically charged deficit spending that wasted American manufacturing jobs. Funding for Colombia's Transgender Opera.
Foreign sanctions
Sanctions that block the country from exporting to the US serve the same purpose as high tariffs. Ironically, free traders aren't moving forward over sanctions like tariffs. The current sanctions imposed on Russia are technically “taxes on consumers” and raise the prices of goods that Russia would otherwise export.
If China, like Russia, poses a threat to US national security, or not more, why does “free traders” not support blocking China's exports?
Recent Reports Regarding military spending, it has revealed that the Army and Navy are reducing China's dependence on critical technologies. At the same time, the Air Force increased the use of Chinese suppliers.
While the efforts of the Army and Navy to distance themselves from China are a positive step, relying on foreign enemies on important military infrastructure poses serious risks. The United States must prioritize returning military supply chains to American soil to ensure national security and self-sufficiency.
Even the most passionate “free traders” may recognize that some products important to national defense should be manufactured within the state. However, rather than empowering so-called “experts” and “technocrats” to determine which components of the military industrial supply chain are “most important,” they should not leave parts of the national security equipment in foreign soils.
Vice President JD Vance understands this issue. I'll post on x recently “The bitter irony of America's current predicament is that people who support permanent weapons shipments to Ukraine supported the industrialization of America.
The Vice President is right. HomeBring your American military supply chain and use tariffs to get it done.
