Without tariffs, the US is defenseless in an economic war

The Second Amendment guarantees the right of citizens to bear arms. Many conservatives argue that this is the most important right. Why? Our other core rights — freedom of religion, speech, and assembly — are worthless if they cannot be defended. Firearms safeguard freedom.

Yet these same conservatives have viciously attacked President Trump’s recent 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports, describing it as “political rent-seeking at its most brazen.” Some self-styled nonpartisan critics even claimed that Trump’s tariffs are an “unconstitutional power grab.”

America does not even manufacture the things it would need to use to manufacture more things.

These criticisms are not only unfounded; they are also completely backward. Why? The trade deficit is among the greatest — yet most ignored — threats to America’s freedom. America needs tariffs to eliminate the trade deficit and safeguard our national security.

A lovely bunch of coconuts

The trade deficit undermines America’s national security because of something called import dependency. Import dependency occurs when a country cannot sustain itself without imports. This often occurs when countries lack a specific natural resource.

For example, Iceland is too cold to grow coconuts and must buy coconuts from tropical islands. In this way, Iceland is import-dependent when it comes to coconuts. Import dependency may not sound important — coconuts are not vital to Iceland’s economy — but what if we replaced coconuts with oil? You can imagine that Icelandic winters would be much less hospitable without fuel.

Even less obvious is the threat posed by dependence on imported manufactured goods, like silicon chips. How could Iceland maintain a modern economy without access to computers? It could not. To make matters worse, it is obvious that whoever controlled the supply of computers into Iceland would wield enormous political leverage over the Icelandic people — do what we say or no computers for you!

The reality is that any country that depends on imports is vulnerable in this way. One of the best historical examples of the dangers of import dependence occurred during the American Revolution. Although this may come as a surprise, the American Revolution almost failed because the colonies could not manufacture enough cannons, firearms, and gunpowder to resist the British — our former supplier.

It was only when Britain’s European rivals, particularly the French and Dutch, started supplying the Continental Army that the tide turned. For example, France alone supplied the army with over 80,000 firearms, in addition to swords, knives, and uniforms. America depended upon British manufactured goods, and it was not until this economic dependence was broken that America could free herself from the imperial yoke.

President George Washington recognized this fact, writing that America would not be able to defend its freedoms unless the nation was “independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.” To this end, his first major piece of legislation was the Tariff Act of 1789, which raised taxes on imported manufactured goods.

One of the legislation’s key aims was to promote the development of America’s manufacturing industry. Even Thomas Jefferson — who initially supported free trade on principle — eventually agreed with Washington. In the wake of the War of 1812, Jefferson wrote:

Experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort: and if those who quote me as of a different opinion will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to difference of price [we would be well off] …

Both Washington and Jefferson realized that economics and politics are simply two sides of the same coin. Therefore, to safeguard America’s political independence, we must first maintain America’s economic independence.

My kingdom for a (Chinese-made) horse

The American colonies depended on European imports to wrestle our freedom from the British. Today, we depend on Chinese imports.

Consider that America no longer manufactures enough of the sorts of basic machinery necessary to make simple household items — never mind the sophisticated electrical components needed for computers and smartphones. In other words, even if we wanted to manufacture forks, we would probably need to buy the fork-making machinery from China.

This is made clear when we look at America’s production of machine tools. A machine tool is a piece of machinery that shapes its output by removing material by way of lathing, planning, drilling, milling, grinding, sawing, or pressing the output. Machine tools transform raw materials into something useful. They are the tools that make tools.

America used to be the leading manufacturer and global exporter of machine tools. Today, America imports of most its machine tools and only produces 7% of the world’s machine tools. For comparison, Italy produces 8%, while China makes 29%.

America imports over $500 billion worth of advanced technology products from China every year. Our industrial base has been hollowed out to the point where we could not maintain our economy without imported machine tools and semiconductors — never mind all the innocuous goods that we import like cutlery and baseball caps.

America is import-dependent upon China. This restrains America’s ability to act independently on the world stage and gives China leverage over America in any prospective military engagement.

What would happen if conflict erupted between America and China? Presumably, the United States would need to scale up its industrial production to build more weapons, vehicles, and computers. Just one problem: scaling up is just not possible — at least not immediately.

To manufacture more equipment, America would need to build more factories. But the United States imports almost all its industrial components and machine tools. That is, America does not even manufacture the things it would need to use to manufacture more things.

Worse yet, America’s workforce lacks the training and experience to manufacture critical goods. What would happen, for example, if China stopped selling microchips? Even if we assume that America has the tools to manufacture microchips — which we do not — we do not have the human capital to manufacture microchips on a large scale. Very few Americans know how to make microchips. For that matter, very few Americans have the skills to build the factories themselves.

If the United States were serious about national security, it would make reducing the trade deficit and restoring industrial self-sufficiency its top priority.