In recent weeks, we have all heard about tariffs. President Trump’s threat to impose them liberally has concerned governments and economists throughout the world. Tariffs, however, have a long history. They are reflected in the origin and spread of the word — from Arabic, to Persian, Turkish, Latin, Spanish, French, and English. Tariffs are charges made by local authorities on goods imported from abroad. The charge is paid by the merchants who receive the goods and normally recoup it from those who buy them. Tariffs have many purposes: to raise money for governments, reduce imports, foster and support local industries, punish exporting nations that sell goods at less than their cost, or force those threatened with them to do the will of the imposer.
Economists generally disapprove of them because they distort free trade. They raise prices in the nations that impose them, discourage innovation and efficiency in the industries supported by them, and encourage retaliation that further weakens international trade.
Tariffs are central to President Trump’s program. He has threatened them successfully to force Colombia to receive people returned from the United States, claims less convincingly that they will promote exports, and knows that they will certainly damage the economies of those upon whom he has imposed them. Together with cutting regulations and the oversight of big business, tariffs are a central brick in his reconstruction of the United States economy. He will use the money collected from tariffs to lower taxes on businesses and investors. The wealthy corporations will win twice over, effectively through lower taxes and by raising prices to recoup them. At the same time, the rising inflation associated with tariffs will put further stress on the majority of Americans. The resultant anxiety can be directed into anger at minority groups and increase political support for the President.
The use of tariffs is tactically coherent and may well achieve its goals. It is also ethically disastrous — not in the sense that it disobeys God-given laws, but that it incorporates a false view of human beings and of the quality of human relationships necessary for persons and for society to flourish. Actions by individuals or by states that are not based on serious reflection on human life and behaviour will inevitably create a stunted and mean society.
The starting point for speaking of humanity is the high value of each human being, their unique dignity. Our value comes from being human and is not defined by wealth, position, intelligence, or race. This is the basis of Western law and respect for the rule of law. The second feature of human life is that we human beings depend on others to flourish. To be born, nurtured, fed, and educated, we need others. To travel, we need others to design and make the bikes, cars, and trains. In our work, we rely on others to provide the electricity and give us access to the internet. To flourish as individual persons, we need the assistance of others. To thrive emotionally, we rely on the care and company of others.
'These actions are taken to protect and encourage communities within a nation. But they must also take into account the effect of their actions on people in the nations affected by them. In an imperfect world, some tariffs may be necessary to protect human flourishing.'
Together, these two principles mean that a good society is one in which each person can flourish to the extent that all in society, together with their human environment, flourish. Our flourishing is built on cooperative relationships, not achieved by the success and wealth of forceful and competitive loners. What is true of persons in their relationship to the national society is also true of them in relationship to the intimate and institutional groups to which they belong. These include families, schools, workplaces, hospitals, sporting and cultural societies, churches, banks and corporations, political parties, state governments, and nations. At each of these levels of society, we depend on cooperative relationships if we and the nation are to flourish. And each of these relationships carries a social bond to the most vulnerable in society. It is the business of governments to strengthen and regulate these groups so that they serve the good of their members and the good of the whole society and its environment, especially the most disadvantaged.
What is true of relationships within nations is also true of relationships between them. They should be cooperative, serve the good of persons and of the environment in each nation with a special care for the poorest. In their relationships, they should establish and strengthen international bodies with the power to resolve disputes and to encourage action for the good of all nations.
In an ideal world, tariffs would be undesirable. They always benefit one group of people at the expense of others, and more usually harm the disadvantaged at the expense of the advantaged. In an unequal and imperfect world, however, they might sometimes be justifiable. A government might wish to support small farming communities whose lifestyle and culture are threatened by more efficient, large-scale, and environmentally damaging agricultural businesses in another. A government, too, after seeking approval from an international authority, might wish to encourage an aggressor nation to settle an unjust war by penalising its exports. It might be legitimate, too, for a national government to protect a nascent industry in order to allow it to develop. These actions are taken to protect and encourage communities within a nation. But they must also take into account the effect of their actions on people in the nations affected by them.
In an imperfect world, some tariffs may be necessary to protect human flourishing. The use of tariffs by President Trump, however, plays a central role in implementing a view of human beings and of society that is corrosive of respect, play, decency, and justice. It enshrines competition over cooperation and self-interest over the common good. That malign vision, and not the economic efficacy of tariffs, should be the focus of public conversation.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street, and writer at Jesuit Social Services.
Main image: U.S. Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick speaks as U.S. President Donald Trump signs a series of executive orders including 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, a pardon for former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, an order relating to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and an order for the federal government to stop using paper straws and begin using plastic straws in the Oval Office at the White House on February 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump has signed more than 50 executive orders as of Friday, the most in a president's first 100 days in more than 40 years. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)