Tariffs, if done the right way, could be good for Toledo. As imposed by President Trump, the tariffs are not based on anything coherent. They have nothing to do with income, sales, or to help pay for Social Security, or something else worthwhile. They’re just a tax on where something came from.
So, the French are good at making cheese. What’s the point of taxing that? Mexico is a great place to grow avocados. So, we tax them to pay higher prices for avocados? What’s the point?
The real need for tariffs is when another country uses bad labor practices to undercut American workers. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement we traded with countries that operated factories with no minimum wage, no right to unionize, no freedom of speech, and no work safety standards.
We should tariff countries that use unfair labor standards to protect American workers. Under Trump’s tariffs, we punish even other countries who have good labor standards like ours.
We need auto parts from countries with good labor standards. Tariffs on those parts won’t help American workers.
They’ll kill jobs here. These tariffs are unsustainable and will eventually have to be repealed, and everyone will be left with a bad taste in their mouths. It will be 10 times harder to enact tariffs that help American workers.
We needed tariffs that uplift Toledo’s workers, not a global economic mess.
Thanks to Trump, we probably missed our chance.
First Published April 9, 2025, 4:00 a.m.
