This paper addresses the issue of whether Donald Trump should impose a 35% tariff on the importation of certain goods from China and Mexico, and presumably other countries. Applying utilitarian ethics leads to the conclusion that the tariff should not be imposed. The same result is obtained by...

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist and journalist. One of his classic works is The Candlemakers' Petition, which uses the reductio ad absurdum philosophical technique to dismantle the arguments the French protectionists put forth to protect French industry in the mid-nineteenth...