Source: Beat The Press
by Dean Baker
“Trump’s promise to impose taxes of 10-20 percent on all imports (more for imports from China) has put protectionism front and center in U.S. policy debates. … As in the past debates over free trade and protectionism, this one focuses almost entirely on protection for goods. We almost never hear discussions of much more costly forms of protectionism, specifically protectionism for services, especially those offered by highly paid professionals like doctors and dentists. We also don’t hear discussions of patent and copyright monopolies. These forms of protection can make the prices of covered items ten or even a hundred times more than the free market price, equivalent to a tariff of a thousand or ten thousand percent. Since we’re all on free trade rampage now in the fight against Trump tariffs, it might be a good a time to have some discussion of these more costly forms of protectionism.” (10/08/24)