The Libertarian Case for Tariffs

One of the biggest libertarian critiques of Trump is his stance on tariffs. Generally, libertarians are for free trade and against all tariffs. And generally, that would be good. If other countries were free market capitalist like ourselves (and if we ourselves were truly free market capitalist), then that would be ideal to have free trade between them. But since countries like China are not free, then they are able to use their state-controlled economy to subvert the American economy through our free trade policy.

China uses its authoritarian power to gain money, which it then uses to gain control of the US economy, which hurts the American people. Free trade with China may yield cheaper goods for Americans, but overall it restricts the liberty of Americans. You can buy cheaper shit, but you can't find a good job or own a home to put it in.

Free trade only works with free countries. Otherwise, you're essentially helping to finance further authoritarianism and communism.

From a libertarian perspective, I would favor tariffs against authoritarian and communist countries like China in order to protect free market capitalism in America. Counter-intuitively, tariffs can be economically libertarian when applied to anti-libertarian countries. By placing tariffs on such countries, you incentivize them to become more libertarian, and if they do so, the tariffs will then be removed. Sometimes anti-libertarian measures must be taken in the short term to achieve more liberty in the long term.