This blog is being used to show how an old tool can be used in a new way. That tool is called the tariff or import tax. It is a tax that once was placed on goods or materials that were imported into the United States and sold domestically or used in products that are later exported.
The tax is used to protect our American jobs from having to compete against foreign made products that where produced under unequal and unfair circumstances compared to our own. This is especially true when it comes to lack of safety standards, dirt cheap wages, child labor and minimal if any environmental regulations as well as a government philosophy that may be far more controlling than our own.
The tax is designed and monitored to maintain at minimum, an equivalent sales price compared to a very similar American made product. This tax can be made higher at times to increase the cost of the foreign competitor's product if one of our domestic industrial sectors is in need of assistance to retool itself in order to protect American jobs and our economy's health. It can also be lowered or deleted when little or no similar imported material or industry exists in the United States.
One of the problems with placing a U.S. tariff on an import is that if a substance like imported sugar is tariffed and then it is used by an American company here in the United States to make and combine it with chocolate then that American company making the chocolate will be at a disadvantage when it tries to sell it's product overseas because the tariff will make the final product cost that much more. It will be that much harder to compete with other less regulated and lower waged countries and foreign competitors.
This brings me to my new idea on how to implement and refund a tariff depending on if it was domestically consumed or exported outside of our country in the end. I call this new tariff plan the Domestic Use Only-Import Hardship Tariff. I abbreviate it as DUO-IHT but pronounce it as "DO-IT".
See next post for details.
