reSee.it Video Transcript AI Summary
Tariffs on foreign imports may first appear patriotic—protecting American products and jobs—and sometimes they work for a short time. But what eventually occurs is that first homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And while all this is going on, something even worse occurs.
High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.
The memory of all this occurring back in the thirties made me determined when I came to Washington to spare the American people the protectionist legislation that destroys prosperity. Now it hasn't always been easy. There are those in the Congress, just as there were back in the thirties, who want to go for the quick political advantage, who risk America's prosperity for the sake of a short term appeal to some special interest group, who forget that more than 5,000,000 American jobs are directly tied to the foreign export business and additional millions are tied to imports.