“A Jeffersonian Lament on Tariffs and the Foolishness Therein”
Fellow citizens of the Republic, I address you from Monticello’s perch to warn of the folly of tariffs, which history and the science of economics have long decried as harbingers of inflation and misfortune. Behold the specter of a new tariff policy, championed by one Donald Trump, a president-elect who fancies himself an alchemist of prosperity yet wields trade restrictions as his philosopher’s stone. Alas, these measures shall transmute not prosperity but pain.
Did not the American colonies rebel against tariffs that sought to fleece us without representation? And yet here we stand, with a leader proposing to levy heavy import duties on our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, as if the lessons of history are naught but whispers on the wind.
Consider Canada, from whom we receive four million barrels of oil each day—a flow of lifeblood to our industrious economy. Shall we burden this trade with a 25% tariff, adding ballast to the price of gasoline? Does it not follow, as night follows day, that such tariffs will raise the cost of transport, inflate the price of goods, and spread misery from sea to shining sea? Indeed, even the ox-carts of Virginia would groan under such a policy.
Our southern neighbor, Mexico, contributes a tenth of our crude oil imports. Shall we likewise impose upon this partnership the yoke of tariffs, cutting our supply and inflating our costs, all in the name of a misguided quest for nationalistic triumph? This is akin to lopping off one’s own hand to spite an enemy—an act of self-mutilation parading as strategy.
The president-elect’s defenders may argue that America’s oil and gas abundance shall insulate us from such calamity. But pray, how shall these resources be reallocated with haste? Shall the market’s invisible hand be coerced by the visible whims of a single man? Even King George, in his hubris, could not command such miracles.
Private enterprise, unshackled by tariffs, has always been the engine of our prosperity. Yet Trump’s policy threatens to hobble this engine, forcing oil companies to reorganize their global supply chains overnight—a feat Herculean in its impracticality and hubristic in its presumption. The folly here is clear: tariffs inflate costs and restrict supply, leading not to plenty but to privation.
Recall, dear citizens, that prices are not set by government decree alone but by myriad forces: supply, demand, global markets, and the enterprise of free men. The president-elect appears to fancy himself a fiddler of these forces, seeking a control that no mortal can wield without calamity.
Let us heed the lessons of the past. The tariffs of the 1828 “Tariff of Abominations” provoked rebellion and division. They stifled trade, burdened consumers, and impoverished the many for the gain of the few. Shall we now walk that road again, guided by a modern-day Mercantilist who knows not the cost of his actions?
Tariffs, I say, are a tax upon the citizen, hidden though they may be in the rising price of every good and service. To impose them with reckless abandon is to invite inflation, discord, and hardship. Let us reject such policies and cleave to the wisdom of free trade, for therein lies the prosperity of the many and the strength of the Republic.
Yours in liberty and common sense,
Thomas Jefferson