Economic historian John Steele Gordon offers Commentary readers the following assessment (subscriber link) of tariffs while responding to a reader’s criticism of an earlier article:

Tariffs are a tax ultimately paid by the consumer. And high tariffs allow domestic manufacturers to raise their prices without losing market share. That is just what the manufacturers would do, causing the cost of living to skyrocket. Perhaps Mr. Briskin wouldn’t mind paying $20 apiece for T-shirts made in Shreveport instead of $5 for T-shirts made in Sri Lanka, but the rest of American consumers most certainly would. Free trade has been the greatest engine of world economic growth ever discovered, both for developed countries like the United States and developing ones such as Sri Lanka.