Ever had the experience of realizing that one leg of a three-legged stool is too long, and needs to be pared? Then you shave it down, and it's too short, so the other two need to be pared? Pretty soon, you have no stool. That is one of the biggest problems with protectionism. It soon becomes a vicious cycle, with protectionists forced to self-inflict more damage in a futile attempt to repair the setbacks they had already wrought on the economy.
President Trump demonstrated that again Tuesday with an early morning tweet complaining about the negative impact his own tariffs (otherwise known as taxes) have had on Harley-Davidson. Doubling down, he is now threatening to impose more of the same taxes that undermined Harley in the first place.
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