i know people love to make the “well if tariffs are so bad, how come everyone imposes them!?!” argument, but this is a bit like saying “well, if corruption is such a bad thing, why are all governments corrupt?”tariffs persist because the people who benefit from them pay for play. the “protected” industries make big donations and lobby. they help pander to populist sentiment that they have “created” or “protected” jobs by pointing to the “seen” factories they opened and ignoring the unseen larger number of businesses they drove under or that never were as a result. they generate political support for a regime of plunder because most people simply lack the economics grounding to impute the unavoidable net effect.
