Tariffs that save jobs in the steel industry mean higher steel prices, which in turn means fewer sales of American steel products around the world and losses of far more jobs than are saved. — Thomas Sowell
A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. — Karl Marx
Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum amount of moo. — Terry Pratchett
The Tort Tax adds to the cost of everything we buy because businesses and manufacturers have to cover themselves and their employees - just in case they get sued by a greedy personal injury lawyer. — Dennis Hastert
The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. — Lysander Spooner
If a tax on malt would raise the price of beer, a tax on bread must raise the price of bread. — David Ricardo
There are four great measures for my administration - a reduction of tariff, an independent treasury, settlement of the Oregon boundary and acquisition of California. — James K. Polk
What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war. — Henry George
Protectionism is a misnomer. The only people protected by tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions are those engaged in uneconomic and wasteful activity. Free trade is the only philosophy compatible with international peace and prosperity. — Walter Block
The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed. — Alan Keyes
There is no man more dangerous, in a position of power, than he who refuses to accept as a working truth the idea that all a man does should make for rightness and soundness, that even the fixing of a tariff rate must be moral. — Ida Tarbell
Blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading; protective tariffs are a means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading. What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war. — Henry George
There was nothing natural about laissez-faire; free markets could never have come into being merely by allowing things to take their course. Just as cotton manufactures were created by the help of protective tariffs, export bounties, and indirect wage subsidies, laissez-faire was enforced by the state. — Karl Polanyi
The primary reason for a tariff is that it enables the exploitation of the domestic consumer by a process indistinguishable from sheer robbery. — Albert J. Nock
U.S. corn exports to CAFTA countries will benefit from reduced tariffs and duty-free access for corn products. — John Shimkus
As history has repeatedly proven, one trade tariff begets another, then another - until you've got a full-blown trade war. No one ever wins, and consumers always get screwed. — Mark McKinnon
Our observation is generally that the Chinese car companies are the most competitive car companies in the world. So, I think they will have significant success outside of China depending on what kind of tariffs or trade barriers are established. Frankly, I think if there are no trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other companies in the world. So, they’re extremely good. — Elon Musk
The benefits of a tariff are visible. Union workers can see they are "protected". The harm which a tariff does is invisible. It's spread widely. There are people that don't have jobs because of tariffs but they don't know it. — Milton Friedman
Tariffs protect ill-considered government policies, such as costly regulations and high taxes on labor and capital that make our goods uncompetitive in international markets. — Paul Craig Roberts
Tariffs, government contracts, naval and military spending, nationalized industries, tax policy, social welfare, the legal privileging of labor unions were among the means at the disposal of the governing class to exploit the public at large for the benefits of its various clienteles. — Ralph Raico
Any time you read that your government is erecting tariff barriers, supporting threatened industries with subsidies, or interfering in any way with free trade between individuals or nations, you must realize that your standard of living is being lowered as a result. — John Pugsley
It's estimated that about 30 percent of the increase in grain prices could be attributed to the decision to embrace biofuels, particularly corn-based ethanol. It has done nothing for climate change and the business is in real trouble now with the collapse of oil prices. It's completely dependent on a dollar subsidy and tariff from the government. — Michael Pollan
TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer. — Ambrose Bierce
Businessmen are notable for a peculiarly stalwart character, which enables them to enjoy without loss of self-reliance the benefits of tariffs, franchises, and even outright government subsidies. — Herbert J. Muller
Tariff policy beneficiaries are always visible, but its victims are mostly invisible. Politicians love this. The reason is simple: The beneficiaries know for whom to cast their ballots, and the victims don't know whom to blame for their calamity. — Walter E. Williams
In 1833, protection was abandoned, and a tariff was established by which it was provided that we should, in a few years, have a system of merely revenue duties. — Henry Charles Carey
Every businessman is in favor of freedom for everybody else, but when it comes to himself that's a different question. He's always the special case. He ought to get special privileges from the government, a tariff, this, that and the other thing. — Milton Friedman
[Economic restrictions] is one of the elements that is destabilising the world economic order that was at one time created largely by the United States itself at the dawn of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that was later transformed into the World Trade Organisation. — Vladimir Putin
France would be reluctant to embrace any proposal by the European Commission to slash agricultural tariffs if it threatened the European Union's Common Agriculture Policy . — Christine Lagarde
I am in favor of a national bank...in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff. — Abraham Lincoln
Because of the Korean free trade agreement, South Koreans who want Oregon blueberries are gonna see their prices go down because we will be getting rid of a 45 percent tariff on this Oregon product. — Ron Wyden
It's so hard to get our goods into China. And when we do get in they charge us a huge surtax. They call it a surtax or a tariff. I call it a tax. — Donald Trump
Many people who have lost out in the last few decades voted for Trump. Trump will have a difficult time turning them into winners. The jobs of these people are not at risk because of Chinese or Mexican workers, but because of robots and computers. And new trade barriers and higher tariffs are not going to change that. — Nicholas Bloom
From the Anarchist standpoint, these artificial hindrances which are the cause of three main forms of usury-interest, profit, and rent, are, in the order of their importance, monopoly in the control of the circulating medium-money and credit, private property in land not based on occupancy and use, patent rights and copyrights, and tariffs. — Laurance Labadie
There is no legislation--I care not what it is--tariff, railroads, corporations, or of a general political character, that all equals in importance the putting of our banking and currency system on the sound basis proposed in the National Monetary Commission plan. — William Howard Taft
We want a comprehensive package that covers export subsidies, tariffs and overall levels of support. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is making central to his summit speech that he wants to abolish all export subsidies. It is up to him to push the European Union in that direction, and the U.S. needs to reciprocate. — Kevin Watkins
There is no tariff so injurious as that with which sectarian bigotry guards its commodities. It dwarfs the soul by shutting out truths from other continents of thought, and checks the circulation of its own. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin
In a certain sense every creative person is a reformer, but this does not mean that he must be in his work a propagandist for good roads, shorter hours, and a low tariff. All these are excellent things, but they need not be the concern of the artist. — Heywood Broun
I read the book with interest, but when Jackson was a candidate in 1828 for the Presidency, I opposed him and voted for Adams. I favored a protective tariff. — Ezra Cornell
Our country was built, to a large extent, on protecting our manufacturers. If you go back to Jefferson, you go back to all of these great, great people that ran the United States properly, it was really based on a certain form of tariff and a certain form of protection. We're just the opposite now. — Donald Trump
First of all, a president of the United States can't unilaterally impose a tariff on another country. It takes an act of Congress, and that would never pass Congress. But that's not the way to fix trade policy, to do unilateral tariffs on other countries. — Sherrod Brown
We know from drafts that the Donald Trump's administration has circulated on Capitol Hill, there are a few things they would like to change about NAFTA. They would like to, for example, have the ability to impose tariffs just because imports are surging from Canada or Mexico, not necessarily because they're being sold unfairly. They want more freedom to use our countervailing the subsidy laws against Canada and Mexico. — Donald Trump
When Donald Trump was first elected, there was a lot of fear of a trade war. They listened to Trump's rhetoric on the campaign. Oh, we're going to put a 45 percent tariff on China, a 35 percent tariff on Mexico. We haven't seen any of that. — Donald Trump
Tariffs are in the end taxes. And somebody has to pay that tax. I think one thing people are forgetting is that trade disputes are two-sided. When the United States imposes tariffs on a partner like Canada, there is always a possibility that Canada will say that's not fair and retaliate. And at that point, you have to ask the question, - which U.S. industry will suffer because the Canadians retaliated against it? — Greg Ip
The Barack Obama administration had been negotiating with the Canadians to come up with a permanent solution on lumber tariff. And they failed. And so even though this is being portrayed as the first salvo by Donald Trump's tough trade regime, in fact, it's quite possible that, if Hillary Clinton were president, we would be in the same place. — Donald Trump
People don't realize Canada has been very rough on the United States. Everyone thinks of Canada as being wonderful. And so do I. I love Canada. But they have outsmarted our politicians for many years, and you people understand that. So, we did institute a very big tariff on lumber. — Donald Trump
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of tariff quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about tariff to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of tariff quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.