Trump’s proposal to impose tariffs on China has drawn mockery from economists

Donald Trump ’s proposal to impose tariffs on imports from China has drawn mockery from economists.

Julian Zelizer : But economists are abandoning some of their most basic analytic principles.

He says they should consider only the costs of tariffs, and not the benefits.

Zelizer says the basic premise is that domestic production has value beyond market prices reflect.

David Rothkopf : In the long run, free trade will lead to new and better jobs in the U.S. He says economists have little patience for assessing tariffs as a tax on American manufacturers.

He says when economists account for a tariff’s full range of effects, the picture changes dramatically.

Rothpf: Tax Foundation's report ignores the value of any tariffs collected, and estimates for growth and employment are wrong.

David Rothkopf : A tariff that could raise hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue merit some mention.

He says the standard anti-tariff narrative ignores all of this; protectionism can go too far: Insulating firms from any concern about foreign competition could lead to stagnation.

But public policy is about trade-offs, he says, and the trade-off presented by tariffs have been well understood for centuries .