THE WASHINGTON UNION PAPERS: NO. 14

TRADE & TARIFFS: HOW AMERICA CAN WIN THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC WAR

To the People of the United States,

An economy that does not defend itself is an economy that surrenders. Trade is not an abstract principle; it is a battlefield, and America has been losing for far too long. The wealth of a people is not secured by the generosity of foreign markets, nor is it preserved by the benevolence of global corporations. It is built by industry, by production, by the relentless pursuit of self-sufficiency. A nation that relies on imports to sustain itself is a nation that has surrendered its future. A nation that allows foreign competitors to undercut its industries without consequence is a nation that has chosen decline. America, once the envy of the world, has been reduced to a consumer economy, dependent on the manufacturing power of others, beholden to the very nations that seek to weaken it.

This was not an accident. It was a choice, a deliberate policy decision made by those who placed short-term profit over national prosperity. They sold the illusion that free trade would lift all boats, that unregulated global commerce would create boundless opportunities, that the erosion of tariffs and the outsourcing of industry would make America richer. Instead, it made foreign nations stronger. It hollowed out the backbone of American manufacturing, turned steel mills into rusted relics, turned once-thriving industrial towns into hollowed-out communities of despair. It enriched multinational corporations at the expense of the American worker. It placed our economic destiny in the hands of those who do not share our interests and do not seek our success.

But the lie cannot persist forever. The consequences of this economic betrayal are now plain for all to see. We do not produce what we consume. We do not manufacture what we require. We depend on adversaries for essential goods, from pharmaceuticals to semiconductors, from steel to energy technology. We have traded strength for dependence, dominance for vulnerability. And now, as foreign powers manipulate their own markets, subsidize their own industries, and tilt the playing field in their favor, America is told that it must not respond, that tariffs are too dangerous, that protecting our own economy will harm our own people. This is another lie.

A well-structured system of tariffs is not an act of economic sabotage. It is an act of economic survival. It is not an attack on trade; it is a defense of sovereignty.

It is not a weapon against the American people; it is a shield against the forces that seek to reduce them to mere consumers of foreign goods. Tariffs, properly implemented, are not a burden but a tool for national revival. The question is not whether tariffs should be used. The question is how they should be structured to ensure that the burden falls not on the American worker, but on the foreign interests that have exploited weak trade policies to their advantage.

The answer lies in a strategic, targeted, and intelligent approach to tariffs—one that rewards domestic production, punishes foreign undercutting, and reinvests in American industry. Tariffs must not be wielded recklessly, nor should they be applied without a clear and deliberate purpose. The goal is not simply to tax imports, but to restore balance, to reestablish America as a production powerhouse rather than a consumer colony. For too long, trade policy has been dictated by short-sighted thinking, by leaders who viewed tariffs as either a relic of the past or a blunt political tool rather than a precision instrument of economic sovereignty. This mindset must be broken. Tariffs, when applied correctly, are not barriers to growth—they are the foundation upon which sustainable growth is built.

A properly structured tariff system does not indiscriminately raise costs on essential goods without cause. It does not harm American consumers simply for the sake of political posturing. It is not a tool of protection for failing industries but an instrument of advantage for industries that have been deliberately undermined by foreign competitors who do not play by the same rules. American manufacturers do not compete on an even playing field, and to pretend otherwise is to accept defeat before the game has even begun. When foreign governments subsidize their industries to undercut American production, when they manipulate their currencies to flood our markets with artificially cheap goods, when they use exploitative labor conditions that no American company could legally replicate, they are not engaging in free trade—they are engaging in economic warfare.

Tariffs, then, are not a reactionary measure but a necessary response to an economic landscape that has been corrupted by foreign intervention. But tariffs alone are not enough. A tariff that does not lead to reinvestment is a tariff wasted. Every dollar collected through these measures must be directed toward strengthening the industries they are designed to protect. Tariff revenue must not be absorbed into the general budget, where it becomes a mere drop in the vast ocean of federal spending. It must be channeled directly into the revitalization of American production.

It must fund the reindustrialization of the nation, fueling the development of advanced manufacturing, modernizing infrastructure, expanding industrial training programs, and restoring the competitive edge that has been dulled by decades of neglect.

A tariff without an industrial policy is a half-measure. The goal is not merely to impose a cost on foreign competitors, but to create an environment where American businesses can thrive, innovate, and lead. This requires direct and aggressive reinvestment in research and development, ensuring that domestic companies are not simply protected from foreign exploitation but are also given the resources to outcompete their global rivals. It requires funding new technologies that will define the future, from next-generation manufacturing to artificial intelligence, from energy independence to supply chain security. It requires a bold rethinking of trade policy—not as a passive acceptance of global economic currents, but as an active assertion of national interest.

Protection without reinvestment is stagnation. There is no value in shielding industries if they are not given the means to grow, modernize, and dominate. The goal is not simply to stop foreign encroachment but to ensure that America once again becomes the undisputed leader in production. If tariffs are to serve their purpose, they must be coupled with an unrelenting commitment to national renewal. They must be more than economic barriers—they must be the catalyst for an industrial renaissance, one that does not merely look backward to past glory but seizes the future with unshakable resolve.

If we impose tariffs, we must also ensure that the revenue strengthens the industries it shields—through infrastructure, through research and development, through direct investment in the American worker. A tariff should not just protect a job; it should create better jobs, higher wages, and a stronger economic foundation for future generations. This is not economic nationalism—it is economic realism. It is the recognition that a nation’s strength is determined not by what it consumes, but by what it produces. And if America is to reclaim its rightful place as the engine of global innovation and manufacturing, then tariffs must be wielded not as reactionary instruments, but as strategic weapons in the ongoing battle for economic supremacy.

Critics will argue that tariffs raise prices, that they increase costs for consumers, that they disrupt the free market. Let them argue. The so-called free market they defend is not free at all. It is a rigged game, a tilted battlefield where American workers are forced to compete against the subsidized industries of foreign powers.

It is a system where corporations outsource production to exploit cheap labor while selling goods back to the very country whose jobs they have eliminated. It is not tariffs that have harmed the American worker—it is the lack of them. It is not trade protections that have eroded wages—it is their absence. It is not economic nationalism that has weakened us—it is the surrender of economic control to forces that do not share our interests.

The great powers of history did not rise by relinquishing control of their own economies. They did not ascend by opening their doors to unfettered foreign dominance, by allowing their industries to be dismantled and rebuilt overseas, or by surrendering their economic sovereignty for the promise of cheaper goods. They rose through strength, through discipline, through policies that placed the interests of their people above the demands of global markets. They built their nations not as open fields for foreign exploitation but as fortresses of industry, ensuring that the wealth created by their workers remained within their borders, fueling national growth rather than enriching their competitors.

America itself did not stumble into prosperity, nor was it handed economic supremacy through the goodwill of the world. It earned its place through deliberate, calculated efforts to secure its industries from foreign control. The early architects of American power understood that economic independence was the foundation of national strength. They knew that wealth was not created by allowing foreign competitors to dictate the terms of trade, but by fostering domestic production, by ensuring that American factories roared with innovation, by protecting the industries that would fuel national expansion. The economic policies of the young republic were not rooted in naïve faith in the so-called free market, but in the pragmatic understanding that an economy left defenseless is an economy at the mercy of those who seek its decline.

Tariffs were not simply taxes on imports; they were instruments of national strategy, tools that allowed America to develop industries that would have otherwise been crushed by established foreign competitors. The great industrialists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were not merely beneficiaries of domestic talent and ingenuity—they thrived because the government ensured that American industries had the space to grow, to innovate, to establish themselves as dominant forces before being forced into competition on a global scale. No serious power in history has ever subjected its infant industries to the slaughterhouse of foreign competition before they were strong enough to stand on their own. Britain, Germany, Japan, China—all of these nations built their strength by first securing their own markets, by cultivating industries behind protective barriers, by ensuring that their workers produced not just for the benefit of corporate elites but for the enrichment of the nation as a whole.

America’s rise was no different. It was not an accident that the United States became an economic titan; it was the direct result of a government that understood its responsibility to its people. The steel that built the skyscrapers, the engines that powered the trains, the machinery that transformed industry—none of it was the product of blind adherence to global competition. It was the result of a deliberate strategy, of a refusal to allow American workers to be undercut by foreign labor, of a recognition that national wealth is not created through dependency but through self-reliance.

Only after we had secured our own strength did we open our markets on our own terms. Only after American industries had become global leaders did we engage in trade as equals, not as subordinates to foreign interests. Only after we had built an economic empire capable of withstanding competition did we begin to entertain the notion of freer markets. We understood then what we have forgotten now—that economic strength precedes economic openness, that a nation must first stand before it extends a hand. We did not rise by surrendering control of our economy. And we will not rise again until we take it back.

The path forward is clear. We must reclaim the tools that built this nation. We must impose tariffs that correct the imbalance created by years of one-sided trade agreements. We must target industries vital to national security—steel, technology, energy, pharmaceuticals—and ensure that their production remains in American hands. We must reinvest tariff revenue into rebuilding our manufacturing base, into training workers, into reviving the industrial core that once made this nation an economic superpower. We must not be deterred by the cries of those who profit from American weakness. We must not hesitate in the face of global opposition. We must act with the confidence that our economy is strongest when it serves the American people first.

This is not protectionism. This is patriotism. This is not isolationism. This is independence. The enemies of American prosperity will say otherwise. They will howl that tariffs and trade barriers are relics of the past, that multinational corporations must be free to chase cheap labor and maximize their profits at the expense of the American worker. They will sneer at the idea that this nation should reclaim control of its economy, that its industries should serve its people first, that its policies should prioritize national strength over globalist greed. But they are liars. They are traitors to the very land that made them rich. And their time is running out.

This is not retreat. This is the first step toward victory in the global economic war that has been waged against us for decades. For too long, we have been told that globalization is inevitable, that the sacrifice of our industries, our jobs, and our self-sufficiency is the price of progress. They told us that our manufacturing jobs were obsolete, that our industries had to be sent overseas, that Americans were too expensive to employ, too demanding, too proud. They told us that free trade was an unshakable law, that to resist it was to fight against nature itself. But they did not tell us the truth. The truth is that this was not some grand, uncontrollable economic shift. It was a decision. It was engineered. It was a betrayal. And the ones who sold us out must be held accountable.

Look at the corporations that once stood as pillars of American industry—companies that built their fortunes in the factories of Detroit, in the steel mills of Pennsylvania, in the shipyards and railways that spanned this nation. They took the wealth that America gave them, the workers who made them great, the resources that fueled their rise—and they abandoned them. They packed up their factories, shipped them to China, to Mexico, to wherever labor was cheapest and regulations were weakest. They gutted American towns, left families broken, communities in ruin, entire generations without a path forward. And they did it for nothing but the almighty dollar.

And where were our leaders? They did not stop them. They did not fight for the American worker. They shook hands with the very men who sold us out. They signed deals that accelerated our decline, allowed foreign competitors to flood our markets while we were told to "adapt." They bailed out Wall Street while Main Street crumbled. They watched as foreign countries, playing by rules we were too naïve or too corrupt to challenge, overtook us in industry after industry. They let it happen. And now, they dare to tell us that tariffs, that fair trade policies, that fighting back is "dangerous."

We did not start this war. But we will end it. And we will win. The time for waiting is over. The time for half-measures is over. The time for groveling before corporate interests, before foreign governments, before the economic mercenaries who profit from our decline, is over. We will not allow another factory to be shuttered and sent overseas. We will not accept another trade deal that hands our future to foreign competitors. We will not bow to the multinational elites who see this nation as nothing more than a market to be exploited, as nothing more than a source of cheap, desperate labor. No more.

It is time to put America first—not in rhetoric, not in campaign slogans, but in policy, in action, in law. It is time to break the corporations that have grown fat off our losses, to hold accountable the executives who have hollowed out our industries, to strip away the tax incentives that reward companies for sending jobs overseas. It is time to make it clear that America’s wealth, America’s power, America’s future will no longer be dictated by those who owe no allegiance to its people.

This is not an abstract fight. This is not an intellectual debate for think tanks and economists who have never seen the inside of a factory, never worked a midnight shift, never watched their town die because the mill closed and never reopened. This is a fight for survival. This is a fight for sovereignty. This is a fight for the very soul of this nation. And we will not lose.

They wanted a global economy. They wanted open borders for goods and closed doors for accountability. They wanted America weakened, divided, dependent. But they underestimated us. They underestimated the strength of a people who refuse to be ruled by corporate oligarchs and foreign creditors. They underestimated the resolve of a nation that has been pushed too far, that has been robbed too many times, that is ready to fight for what is rightfully theirs.

Let the CEOs tremble. Let the politicians who signed away our sovereignty panic. Let the global financial elite take notice. The American people are awake. And we are coming to take back what is ours.