"Efficiency," as every libertarian knows, is when a statist command economy subsidizes its producers and manipulates its currency enough to underprice competitors burdened by the need to generate a market return, building enough capacity in the process to satisfy 100% of global demand for advanced manufactured goods. Of course we must accept those goods duty-free - doing anything else would be socialism. I think I read that in Hayek. Back in reality, China's global trade surplus is growing *because* we're tariffing them. Our tariffs put pressure on Chinese producers, which employ Chinese consumers. Producer stress is consumer stress, which means the Chinese domestic market ends up generating less and less demand. Producers can only survive by increasing exports to make up for anemic domestic consumption. But the US market is no longer available to them - so they have to flood everyone else. If a tidal wave of Chinese imports were so efficient, they would unlock growth in receiving countries who would count their blessings and laugh at our mistake. Nope - other countries are freaking out about the deindustrialization these imports are unleashing. They're following our lead by rushing to develop their own tariffs on China. Now that US tariffs have redirected the fire hose of Chinese exports toward everyone else, a natural anti-China trade bloc is forming because of the impact of these distorted, subsidized exports. Maybe the Cato people can let the Europeans know they're making a big mistake. I'm sure there's an Adam Smith quote that covers this. At root, the libertarian error is to see free trade with China as capitalism and tariffs as socialism. It's exactly the opposite. Importing Chinese goods means importing their subsidies, their currency manipulation, and their industrial policy, letting these distortions determine prices in our country. Tariffs preserve our capitalist system by ensuring that prices reflect free competition between firms rather than Beijing's decision to subsidize a strategic industry. The real socialists are the ones who want a socialist state to determine who wins and who loses in the American economy.