Source: EconLog
by Pierre Lemieux
“This bout of protectionism is absurd. Consider: The president of the United States would force Americans to pay a tax on their imports of many products in order to incite foreign governments to control (including with the death penalty!) their producers of another product (Fentanyl) that many Americans want, or to incite foreign governments to prevent neighboring nationals from approaching American borders even if they are suspected of coming to America to work for Americans. It is not easy to find another sentence so full of economic absurdities. A related point that many people and apparently many high-level politicos do not seem to understand is the following. A tax on imports is also a quasi-tax on domestically produced substitutes — except that the latter tax is not paid to the government imposing it, but instead to the domestic producers of these substitutes.” (11/30/24)
https://www.econlib.org/some-aspects-of-economic-illiteracy/