Resolved: Tariffs harm domestic and foreign economies.

Before my rebuttal, I need to make some things a bit clearer."My opponent did not address this argument whatsoever. He forfeits this argument."I did not address it directly, as it was a broad overview of Pro's main argument and contained no specific attacks on tariffs. Rather, I provided counterexamples showing how trade tariffs saved jobs and prevented trade deficits. This accusation is based off of Pro's flawed assumption that each and every one of his points would be attacked. I simply demonstrated that the pros of trade tariffs vastly outweighed the cons, proving that trade tariffs were beneficial to domestic and foreign economies. As I stated, anything can be harmful if used or implemented incorrectly (such as free-market anarchism).If you look at his argument, you can see that Pro does the same thing, but to very specific arguments and examples. He did not respond at all to my example of Japan's economic recovery, the loss of jobs in Mexico, the statistics showing that Latin America's per captia income has dropped to half since the 80's, and the estimation that the U.S. economy is 13% smaller than it would without trade deficits. Instead, he provided counterexamples and did not directly address my arguments, which was completely insufficient in that situation.Refutations:Tariffs hurt domestic economies1. "The Hawley-Smoot Tariff didn't fail, but that's not the problem; the problem is that it succeeded. It raised dutiable rates to sky-high levels for over 20,000 imported goods."Pro claimed that it "succeeded" in raising the cost for imported goods. I agree wholeheartedly with him. My point was about helping the economy, which it utterly failed at. He confused the ends with the means.2. "Can you imagine how much costs would rise for manufacturers, producers, small businesses, and government programs when over 20,000 imported items, many of which used in great demand over US goods and of greater economic efficiency than those made in the US."Pro admits that the tariff raised prices on goods that were more efficiently imported than made domestically. In doing so he also admits that it was not the fault of any tariff, but rather a badly-implemented one, which was my point all along.3. "Tariffs are harmful to an economy, because they artificially sustain jobs that the market would otherwise not allow."Once again, Pro ignores the point. Tariffs do sustain jobs that a free market would not allow, but that is the goal of tariffs. It artificially keeps infant industries afloat, allowing them to mature. If economies were allowed to "restructure," as Pro put it, certain countries would be deprived of foreign trade or face rampant unemployment, while others would monopolize world trade. What Pro suggests is Anarcho-Capitalism on a grander scale.4. "It is telling that such proposals never mention the duration of the "maturation" process."The duration is estimated through how long the industry will take to develop, prices and demand, raw material production, and various other factors. For example in the engineering industry the average maturation length is about 20 years, which is not all that long if you are talking about an undeveloped country. [1.http://www.sciencedirect.com...]5. "The infant industry proposals notwithstanding, the free market contains a mechanism by which firms can suffer short-run losses so long as they are compensated by eventual long-run profits:a loan. Plenty of new firms, especially sole proprietorships, don't make money in their first few years of operation. But so long as the present value of the firm's expected future cash flows is positive, the firm's owners should be able to borrow money to finance the first few years."Or the industries could merely copy low-end foreign goods and sell them at inflated prices. Tariffs increase the demand for domestically made goods. Not using tariffs would take away jobs that the infant industries need to mature.6. "The absurdity of the infant industry tariff can be illustrated by considering an "infant worker" tax, which would be a tax levied on experienced workers in order to encourage businesses to hire younger workers with less experience."My opponent seems confused. These are two very different things.Industry: [2.http://en.wikipedia.org...]Worker: [3.http://en.wikipedia.org...]Free trade creates trade deficits7. "For example, a country may have a trade deficit with Japan, but do to the input efficiency of trade with Japan, thatand efficiency country may have trade surpluses with other countries, increasing wealth creation and economic specialization all around."The job losses of trade deficits cannot always be cancelled out by surpluses. Take an example. Country A has a much stronger economy and has more workers than country B. Country A is a bigger producer of cars and computers, while Country B is a bigger producer of foods and luxury items. They trade each other their products, however, without tariffs Country A soon begins to take over their car and computer industries. Country B now relies on Country A, creating a trade deficit. It can sell its foods and luxury items to other countries, but what does that do for the lost jobs in the car and computer industries? Economic specialization is not always a good thing, and certainly not for weaker economies.Tariffs save domestic jobs and industries 8. "Every state in the union will suffer net job losses as a result of the [steel] tariffs;" "Ironically, the biggest job losses will occur in "steel belt" states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan." "For every steel job "saved" as a result of the tariff, eight jobs will be lost in all sectors of the economy;" "The steel producing industry would save between 4,400 and 8,900 jobs at a cost of between $439,485 to $451,509 per steel job saved;""Higher prices for steel products and related inefficiencies would decrease U.S. national income from between $500 million and $1.4 billion at a time when policy-makers are talking about ways to improve the U.S. economy."Steel is not a good choice. It is not even close to a finished product, and thus many jobs rely on it. My opponent's use of steel as an example once again shows that he does not understand my argument. I am arguing that tariffs should be used only in the appropriate circumstances. Not anytime we want! As I stated, "the success of tariffs obviously depends when and how they are enacted." Previous argumentsHong Kong example9. "This claim, generally used by developing countries to avoid cutting tariffs, has a two-word refutation: Hong Kong. Some say Hong Kong's postwar success was as a port and financial centre for China, but being the entrepot for a country under US and United Nations embargoes and ruled by an autarkic Communist was not exactly a licence to print money. Hong Kong did the same as the other Asian tigers – starting off with clothing and other labour-intensive manufacturing and moving into more sophisticated products and services later."Actually, after the communists took power in China, many immigrants fled there, and some Chinese corporations relocated to the city. The rapid industrialization and economic success is in large part due to population growth and low labor costs. [4.http://en.wikipedia.org...]ConclusionHere we see that:1. Pro ignored the point of my argument entirely.2. Pro completely ignored many examples that I gave (Japan, Mexico, Latin America).3. Pro's Hong Kong argument was in fact copied word for word from his source.4. Pro's Hawley-Smoot tariff argument backfired when he admitted that the items taxed were more efficiently imported.5. Pro used an "infant worker tax" concept, which makes absolutely no sense to compare to corporations.6. Pro's trade deficit arguments, again, ignored the point of my own argument.Vote Con"As my summary has shown, Pro has not met the BoP. The resolution is negated." -FourTrouble, upon completing a debate on the same subject.