Since energy is undercosted and climate externalities unregulated, we transport way too much stuff way too cheaply across the globe. Tariffs unintentionally help mitigate that a little. Even the emperor of free market fantasies, Friedrich von Hayek, wanted to regulate environmental externalies, advice that his acolytes immediately discarded. And tariffs are an unintensional, partial, fee on the transport-related externalities.
So tariffs are started for bad reasons. Nationalism, jingoism, “our-country-first”–ism, all bad things. Not good. And from a monetary theory standpoint they’re an inflation disaster waiting to happen. And it’s the type of saber-rattling and border-drawing that makes all of us who dream of a peaceful unbalkanized world have nightmares.
Tariffs also tax the poor; they don’t follow the principle of progressive taxation (which is of course why the US oligarks promote tariffs).
And tariffs are not the climate solution we want, which is comprehensive regulation and energy rationing alongside greener energy and materials.
So this is not a defense of tariffs. It’s just a li’l hopeful silver lining. The neo-liberal market capitalist free trade fanatics are having a cow and it’s fun to see that the fascist they propped up are biting their hands off for once. That does not make him overall good or even okay or even this particular policy proposal good. He can bite all the merchant hands he wants, that does not excuse what he’s done (and is doing) to the poor and to workers and to vulnerable minorites.