> None of these arguments were presented in a reasonable way, with numbers, ahead of a policy decision that made a considered attempt to find an optimal balance.
TFA is the transcript of an historical overview lecture, not a formal economic thesis on the topic, much less, a journal article.
Your point, while valid, might be enhanced by some counter-linking.
With all respect: to pretend that a "historical overview lecture" delivered on 6 May 2025 by a well-known conservative business pundit[1], before the Heritage Foundation, on the subject of "Tariffs in American History" ...
... is somehow completely objective and obviously unrelated to the giant shitstorm of contemporary US tariff policy is just laughable, sorry.
We both know what this is.
[1] The presentation might have fooled you, but John Steel Gordon is absolutely not an "economist" or "historian" in any professional sense.
TIL "noting the author and forum of a lecture with clear political relevance" == "innuendo".
The point isn't that he's wrong (though multiple people here are indeed pointing out things that are). It's that (1) his not being wrong doesn't remotely justify current policy and (2) who he is and where he spoke was very clearly intended to justify current policy. I mean, duh, as it were.
I mean, please. Link me another dry historical lecture hosted by Heritage. I dare you. Everything they do is political.
> In addition, Germany’s value-added tax is remitted on exports but charged on imports.
VAT is paid regardless of who manufactured the car. It is something the final customer has to pay regardless of whether the product was made in EU or abroad. If you are buying BMW, you have to pay VAT. If you are buying Toyota, you have to pay VAT. If you are buying an American car, you have to pay exactly the same VAT. It is sales tax, basically, just managed differently to make tax fraud harder.
Also, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have great reputation and fit into European roads. Ford and General Motors do not have comparatively great reputation. Germans were buying Teslas tho, before those became associated with support to far right.
VAT is not an import tariff. That is a rather major lie. It is a tax applied equally to domestic and foreign produce. Not a mistake, because it is quite known to anyone who ever googled it.
Given they lie about something so straightforward, I am not inclined to trust whatever they write about history. History is super easy to cherry pick and present in manipulative way.
Anybody who understands what VAT is and how it works cannot take this part of the article seriously. I hate VAT, I think it should cease to exist (it is still marginally better than sale taxes) but I made the effort to actually try to understand how it works before writing bullshit about it on basically a blog post.
I think you greatly overestimate the understanding of people working in those institutions.
They have a framework and try to make everything they read/hear about go through that framework, even if it doesn't really fit. They don't really understand, but have strong opinions and held them at least as strongly, maybe more.
They aren't idiots in any case, but clearly, in this particular case, the author doesn't know what he is talking about.
TFA is the transcript of an historical overview lecture, not a formal economic thesis on the topic, much less, a journal article.
Your point, while valid, might be enhanced by some counter-linking.