Tariffs Made America Great
Made in America PATRICK J. BUCHANAN Tariffs Made America Great he slogan “Make America Great at U.S. ports to dump underpriced goods William McKinley, the veteran of An- Again” will, given the astonish- and to recapture the markets they’d lost. tietam who gave his name to the McKin- ing victory it produced for Don- Henry Clay and John Calhoun backed ley Tariff, declared four years before being ald Trump, be recorded among James Madison’s Tariff of 1816, as did ex- elected president: “Free trade results in Tthe most successful in political history. free traders Thomas Jefferson and John our giving our money…our manufactures Yet it raises a question: how did Amer- Adams. It worked. and our markets to other nations. …It will ica first become the world’s greatest eco- In 1816, the U.S. produced 840,000 bring widespread discontent. It will revo- nomic power? yards of cloth. By 1820, it was nearly lutionize our values.” In 1998, in The Great Betrayal: How 14 million yards. America had become Campaigning in 1892, McKinley said, American Sovereignty and Social Justice self-sufficient. “Open competition between high-paid Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Financing “internal improvements” American labor and poorly paid Europe- Global Economy, this writer sought to with tariffs on foreign goods would be- an labor will either drive out of existence explain. come known abroad as the “American American industry or lower American However, as the blazing issue of that day System.” wages.” was Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, Said Daniel Webster, “Protection of our Substitute “Asian labor” for “European it was no easy task to steer interviewers own labor against the cheaper, ill-paid, labor,” and is this not a fair description of around to the McKinley Tariff.
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