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

*Cause of US manufacturing decline* It is important to realise that much of the source of manufacturing decline within the US has come from decreasing competitiveness internationally. As one of the first nations to industrialise, the US had a significant advantage in the international marketplace, but this has declined over time as more nations have begun to develop their industries. Tariffs on imports into the US won't improve competitiveness internationally, so they could at best have a limited impact on growing US manufacturing. In fact, propping up non-competitive industries is actually harmful. It consumes resources that could better be dedicated towards those industries where the US has a competitive advantage. In the longer term, the importance of the international market compared to the domestic market will increase. The US market has traditionally been important because of a high per capita income. However, the rest of the world has rapidly been increasing in wealth and over time the international market for many goods will dwarf the domestic market. When this occurs, those countries that have focused on domestic consumers will be overtaken by those that have focused being competitive in the world marketplace. In particular, I note that robots are gradually reducing the importance of labour costs in the production of goods. This transition will eliminate cheap labour as being a major advantage in many industries. These industries and technologies are precisely the industries in which the US should be investing, not labour intensive industries that we struggle to compete in. *Harm caused by tariffs* I have already explained that when a tariff is applied to a country this causes a massive amount of harm for three main reasons: 1. because the lack of a safety net in most developing or third world countries leaves those who lose their jobs especially vulnerable 2. because reforming the law (and being judged to be in compliance with the law) is often a slow process 3. because the sudden loss of a huge market will cause many suppliers to go broke - this won"t fully recover after tariffs are removed Because of these massive harms, I don"t believe that tariffs are justified even when suppliers in developing countries have an unfair advantage as the harm in applying a tariff exceeds the harm that the tariff is intended to prevent. This is namely the decline of an inefficient industry and a loss in jobs in a country far better equipped to retrain these workers and, if necessary, provide a safety net. Further, because manufacturers are competing internationally, they simply cannot afford to raise employment regulations to the standard of the US. This would simply be too costly and these companies would be outcompeted internationally by countries who companies gave up on the US market, but instead focused on markets that didn"t try to impose these punitive tariffs. But let"s suppose that this was feasible. Because these countries have a much lower cost of living, their labour costs would still be far below the US. The US would still be unable to compete in labour intensive industries - the tariffs aren"t going to change this. *Sales tax* I already explained that Mercantilism has largely been discredited (http://www.economist.com...) and that modern economic thought based on Ricardo"s theory of comparative advantage is that they harm the world economy. Further, they increase the cost to consumers in order to benefit small groups with entrenched interests. This was not responded to. You stated earlier that "The wealthy are too few to fund income tax significantly", yet you now seem to be talking about implementing an (additional?) luxury only sales tax. It is simply unavoidable that any sales tax will have to cover the majority of everyday items in order to make up income. Hence the sales tax will increase the amount required for a liveable wage, just as an income tax does, and hence it isn"t even clear that your proposal would even reduce the cost of labour, which appears to be your only reason for supporting a sales tax. Your burden in this debate is to demonstrate that a sales tax would provide a significant advantage over an income tax. Otherwise, it is simply not worth reorganising our entire taxation system. The US taxation system has evolved over decades to ensure that people are taxed fairly (ie. no-one is double taxed), that incentives are created for desired behavior and to ensure that there aren"t loopholes. If we were to completely rewrite the taxation system, we would lose all of this progress. Further, changing the taxation system would create an enormous cost for both the government and industry in terms of rewriting software and training staff. Less investment due to uncertainty over the new rules and additional time spend adapting to the new system would slow economic growth. Unless you can demonstrate a clear and compelling advantage, it is simply not worth reforming the system.