Not a Zero-Sum Game - Ludwig von Mises Institute

This is only possible politically because the benefits are large and
concentrated among a few domestic producers who can afford to
lobby for the tariffs, while the added costs go unnoticed because
they are diluted among many consumers.
As mentioned above, the consumer bears a dead weight loss.
This loss does not show up as income to anyone. It is an unre-
coverable loss to the community. Even if the government returned
both the extra revenue it received thanks to the tariff plus the extra
unearned income that the favored producers pocketed, consumers
would still be worse off. They could never recover the costs
incurred by the misallocation of resources that resulted from the arbi-
trary distortion of relative market prices.
All taxes are paid by people; "things" cannot pay. Thus, when
a government puts a tariff on a Chinese good, it is really taxing its
own citizens. They now have to spend more money to get the
good from China or buy the next best product from some other
supplier, domestic or foreign. Ultimately, it is the individual pur-
chasers of an imported good who pay the tax in the form of a loss
in their purchasing power. This loss of purchasing power prevents
them fiom buying other goods and services that would have
required additional labor to produce. Thus, a tariff on imports also
has a negative effect on domestic employment.
"FREE TRADE" AGREEMENTS (FTA)
Free trade requires no treaties. All that is needed is to remove
(unilaterally or multilaterally) artificial barriers to trade: England
did this in the mid-nineteenth century, Hong Kong in the mid-
twentieth century. In 1789, the Constitution of the United States