The Case for Tariffs: Market Access Isn't Free

By Robert Paulson

The free-trade consensus has dominated economics for so long that questioning it marks you as economically illiterate. But the emperor has no clothes, and it's time to say so. Tariffs aren't just defensible—they're essential for national sovereignty, strategic security, and economic realism.

Comparative Advantage: The Defeatist's Creed

Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage tells nations to specialize in whatever they're "relatively" best at and trade for everything else. This sounds elegant in theory. In practice, it's a recipe for national suicide masquerading as economic wisdom.

The logic goes: if China can make steel cheaper, let them make it while we focus on services or technology. But what happens when strategic industries disappear? When war comes, you can't build tanks with comparative advantage theory. When supply chains break, you can't eat economic models.

Anyone parroting "just do what you're best at" is either naive or actively undermining national interests. This defeatist mentality—surrendering entire industries because someone else can currently do them cheaper—is not sophisticated economics. It's civilizational foolishness dressed up in academic language.

The Unseen Value: Market Access

Bastiat taught us to consider the unseen. Here's what the free-traders systematically ignore: access to the American market has immense value. The largest, richest consumer market in human history is not a birthright of every factory owner in Shenzhen. It's a privilege.

Why wouldn't we charge for this privilege? When you have something valuable, you price it. The American market—built over centuries through American investment, American institutions, American rule of law—represents extraordinary value. Foreign producers desperate to access it should pay for the privilege.

This isn't protectionism; it's pricing a valuable asset. We charge admission to national parks. We charge for mineral rights on public lands. Why should access to our market be free while access to a plot of desert costs money?

Strategic Industries and National Sovereignty

Imagine taking comparative advantage to its logical extreme: "Country X grows food more efficiently than us, so we'll abandon agriculture entirely." The absurdity becomes obvious. No serious person would outsource food production completely, regardless of price advantages elsewhere.

Yet we're supposed to apply this logic to steel, to semiconductors, to pharmaceuticals, to manufacturing capacity. These aren't widgets—they're the foundation of national power. A nation that can't produce steel can't build ships, tanks, or infrastructure without permission from whoever controls steel production.

Tariffs allow democratic societies to make democratic choices about which industries matter. Maybe this year, cheap consumer goods matter most. Maybe next year, domestic steel capacity matters more. Maybe in wartime, self-sufficiency matters above all. The freedom to make these choices—to respond to changing circumstances—is what tariffs preserve.

The Sovereignty of Economic Decision-Making

Free-trade ideology insists there's only one correct answer: always choose the cheapest option regardless of source. This eliminates democratic choice. It reduces governance to administering whatever the global market dictates.

But sovereignty means the right to make choices, including choices that prioritize values beyond immediate price. We might choose to preserve manufacturing towns even at some cost. We might choose to maintain supply chain redundancy even though it's "inefficient." We might choose to keep critical industries domestic even when imports are cheaper.

These aren't economic errors—they're democratic prerogatives. A nation that can't choose to protect its steel industry or its agriculture isn't economically efficient; it's no longer sovereign.

Trade Is Not a One-Way Street

Here's a thought experiment: imagine American gold miners extract gold and sell it domestically. The value stays in America, circulates in the American economy, builds American prosperity. Perfect.

Now imagine they sell it abroad. We can—and should—consider whether taxing this makes sense. The gold is American. We have the right to put conditions on its export.

Similarly, when foreign goods enter America, we have the absolute right to tax them. This isn't aggression; it's the normal exercise of sovereignty over borders and markets. Every nation does this. The question is not whether to have tariffs but what level serves our interests.

The Swiss Economics Position

Swiss Economics—combining Austrian insights with classical liberal principles and hardheaded realism—recognizes that free trade is a tool, not a religion. Switzerland itself maintains careful control over its markets while preaching free trade to others. The lesson is clear: sovereignty first, trade second.

The Austrian emphasis on decentralized knowledge supports tariff flexibility. No central planner (and no economic model) can determine the "optimal" tariff for every good in every circumstance. Democratic processes, responding to constituent needs and strategic realities, produce better results than slavish adherence to free-trade dogma.

Adam Smith himself recognized that defense matters more than opulence. Strategic industries justify protection. National security trumps marginal efficiency gains. The Wealth of Nations was never meant as an argument for national suicide through deindustrialization.

The Reality of Global Trade

The free-trade theory assumes everyone plays by the same rules. The reality is currency manipulation, state subsidies, intellectual property theft, and regulatory arbitrage. China subsidizes its steel industry massively, then cries "protectionism" when others respond.

Unilateral free trade in this environment isn't principled—it's unilateral disarmament. When other nations weaponize trade policy, responding with tariffs isn't starting a trade war; it's recognizing that the war already exists.

Conclusion: Tariffs as Economic Realism

Tariffs are not the enemy of prosperity—they're the tool of sovereignty. They allow nations to:

• Charge for valuable market access
• Preserve strategic industries
• Maintain supply chain security
• Respond to changing circumstances
• Exercise democratic choice over economic policy
• Counter mercantilist competitors

The question isn't whether tariffs distort markets—of course they do. Everything distorts markets: taxes, regulations, currency policy, legal systems. The question is whether the distortion serves legitimate national interests.

Sometimes it does. Sometimes protecting domestic steel costs consumers slightly more but preserves capacity essential for national defense. Sometimes maintaining agricultural redundancy costs more but ensures food security. Sometimes keeping manufacturing alive costs more but preserves communities and skills.

These are choices sovereign peoples get to make. Tariffs preserve that choice. The alternative—subordinating all values to global price efficiency—isn't economic sophistication. It's the surrender of sovereignty to market forces we don't control.

Free trade can be beneficial between similar economies with similar rules under similar conditions. But treating it as a universal principle, applicable everywhere to everyone regardless of circumstance, is ideological blindness masquerading as economic wisdom.

Tariffs are good. Not always, not everywhere, not at every level—but as a tool of sovereign nations navigating complex realities, they're not just defensible but essential. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something—probably cheap goods made where labor and environmental standards don't apply.