NAFTA and GATT are not popular except with the elites and the politicians they buy. So how about imposing an import tax and offsetting this new tax, dollar per dollar, with reduced income taxes?



On another thread there was discussion about GM and WalMart both encouraging suppliers to have their production done in China to keep costs down. Free trade has turned into the wholesale export of US jobs and manufacturing. Environmental and social legislation have made US production even less competitive. Why, for instance, expand or keep production here when just moving production offshore eliminates unemployment and new employee health care costs?



Changes would have to be made. For instance, an import tax on oil might encourage domestic wind energy production combined with electric cars or people might want to live closer to work. Fruit from Chile would cost more but we would grow more of our own and eat it in season. All the way down the line though, a demand would be created for US labor. We aren't going to get out of this mild depression until there are more jobs. Demand for labor would allow labor to negotiate a larger share of the national economic pie.



One argument against an import tax would be that it discourages exports because our trading partners could be expected to follow suite. However, since our trade imbalance is so lopsided, out trading partners would suffer more if they wanted to engage in a trade war. In June, our balance of trade was a minus $50B. The longer we allow out present free trade policies to continue, the more money our country will hemorrhage.