During a Q&A at Utah State University in 1978, the late economist Milton Friedman had an exchange with an audience member regarding tariffs on steel. His statement is especially relevant now as President Trump has placed a 25% tariff on steel, with exceptions for Canada and Mexico:
FRIEDMAN: There’s a big hue and cry about the steel industry, and about imposing higher tariffs or import quotas on steel. Now, every [economist] in this country ought to be on the right side of that issue, which is a free trade issue. If Japan chooses to subsidize the export of clean air to the United States, why should we object? Isn’t that what it’s doing when it sends steel here? Here, we have this great hue and cry that we should somehow or other subsidize steel, either by tariffs or quotas or other ways, to enable steel to produce both its products and its pollution at home…
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