Would tariffs compensate for China’s currency manipulation?

Cheer Up asked:


China is controlling its currency exchange rate by law. They force their currency to be lower than the free market equilibrium level, which is causing economic distortions and inefficiency by interfering with the free market.

If we put a tariff on Chinese imports, this would make the price of Chinese imports go up, which would be moving closer to the natural free market price.

So in this case, higher prices would actually improve the economy by moving prices closer to the real free market levels.

And don’t tell me tariffs failed in the past. The USA had tariffs on imports throughout the 1800′s, and tariffs made the USA an industrial superpower and a creditor nation by 1914.

Tariffs gave us prosperity.

Free trade has given us economic collapse.

I think it’s time to give tariffs another try.
Alby, the EU has already had to do that with China. They put a punitive tariff on China’s imports, and now China is protesting to the WTO. Problem is, the WTO already approved the tariff because China was dumping products in the EU (selling below cost).

So what if China puts a tariff on our exports? They don’t buy squat from us anyway. Boeing has plenty of other customers. We would gain more jobs than we lost.

Don’t you believe in the free market? Tariffs would undo China’s restraints on trade and move us closer to the free market prices. Isn’t that what we wanted? Free markets?

Why is it bad to restrain trade only if we do it?