Tarrif penalty on imports not manufactured to U.S regulations for polution, safety, child labor, etc

I'll address the three main points of this debate again, the cause of US manufacturing decline, the harms caused by tariffs and the effects of a sales tax. *Cause of US manufacturing decline* As I explained in round 3, much of the decrease in US manufacturing decline comes from other countries industrialising and hence providing increased competition in the international marketplace. This is important because tariffs only apply to the domestic market and because the international market will be much more important than the domestic over the longer term. Pro wanted to argue that the lack of competitiveness was due to US anti-pollution and fair labour practises. In regard to pollution, developing countries have begun to realise that polluting the environment will harm them in the long term and are hence starting to improve their environmental regulations, so this simply isn't as significant a problem as Pro would have you believe. In regards to labour costs, I already explained that increased automation is making this less relevant. Pro listed the specific example of semiconductor manufacturing, but the US semiconductor manufacturing market is rebounding. "In 2007, the percentage of equipment spending for chip manufacturing in the US had dropped to 15 percent, an all-time low. Today, the U.S. market represents over 20 percent of world equipment spending with promising expectations for continued growth" (http://www.semi.org...). This is because the maintenance of a highly automated industry, such as semiconductor manufacturing, requires a highly skilled workforce, not cheap labour. Any suggestion that the US information technology industry needs tariffs in order to be competitive is ludicrous. The US still dominates this industry with most of the largest companies Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Ebay, Amazon and IBM all being US based companies. Sure, we can't compete with cheap Indian outsourcing, but tariffs can't make US outsourcing competitive internationally. *Harm caused by tariffs* Given that big corporations have entrenched interests, they will use their money and lobbying power to ensure that these tariffs are applied against as many of their competitors as possible. So even if the law allows specific tariff penalties, the result is likely to be wide ranging penalties against entire industries, when there are only a few bad apples. I have already explained why broad tariffs are so harmful. Pro never responded to a number of key arguments. Firstly, that tariffs benefit big corporations at the cost of consumers. Secondly, corporations couldn't necessarily comply with all US labour and environmental laws and remain competitive in the global marketplace and hence imposing these tariffs is unduly burdensome. Lastly, that many countries have significantly lower costs of living and that the US will still be unable to compete against these countries even if they paid wages equivalent to US wages in their country. *Sales tax* I am willing to support the introduction of a luxury tax as a component of the tax system, but your burden in this debate is to show (in your own words), "The US should implement a federal sales tax and abolish income tax". I explained that reforming the tax system has a significant cost in terms of businesses migrating over and losing a system that has evolved over decades, so you need to demonstrate a compelling need to reform. Pro provided two benefits. Firstly, that removing tax returns removes a source of fraud. However, it is just as easy to buy goods with cash under the table as it is to get paid with cash under the table. Secondly, they argued that it would mean that citizens don't wouldn't have to file tax returns. Three responses to that: 1) filing a tax return is the price of having a fairer tax system that creates the right incentives 2) the proper response to this imperative is to simplify income tax 3) software (we have eTax in Australia) is reducing the time and effort involved in filing a tax return. So neither of pro's arguments are really compelling.