Look, the chattering class, those economic dilettantes and self-righteous bureaucrats, love to scoff at tariffs. They’ll tell you it’s “regressive,” that it squeezes the little guy’s wallet. Sure, it hits consumption, and the poor spend more of their income. But let’s cut the nonsense, the poor aren’t fragile pets needing coddling. While these bureaucrats think the poor are retarded wards of the state. Tariffs tax what you buy, not what you earn. That’s fairer than soaking labour, your sweat, your grind, with payroll taxes. It’s a system that says, “Work hard, keep more,” not “Let the government pick your pocket.”
History backs this up. America ran on tariffs from day one, no income tax until 1913. Duties averaging 20-50% built railroads, factories, and a navy, all while inflation sat near zero. Trump’s first go-round proved it again. Even Biden kept them, his tariffs on steel and aluminium brought jobs back, squeezed China, and didn’t tank the economy like the doomsayers predicted. Revenue rolled in, and the U.S. flexed its market muscle. The numbers don’t lie, tariffs work when you’ve got leverage, and America’s got plenty.
The great economic minds, those who see past the ivory tower, love tariffs for good reason. They’re simple. No sprawling IRS, no labyrinth of loopholes. Bureaucracy shrinks, and government lives within its means. More money flows, cash that doesn’t get siphoned off by pencil-pushers. And as we learnt with USAID and the dodgy Payments our US diplomat (ex-pm) received; those pencil pushers are a bunch of thieves. It’s taxation without the nanny state, funding what’s needed without choking the worker. Smaller government, bigger wallets. What’s not to like?
Communists, socialists, and meddling interventionists hate it, though. Tariffs don’t fit their script. They want control, a big, bloated systems to “redistribute” your earnings, to play saviour with other people’s money. Tariffs sidestep that. They don’t let the state micromanage your life or prop up their utopian schemes. It’s too free, too practical. They’d rather tax you into submission than let markets breathe.
The people? They’ll love it. Paychecks stretch further when labour’s not the target. Jobs stay home when industries get a shield. It’s not charity, it’s a chance to stand tall. Americans don’t want handouts, they want a fair shot. Tariffs deliver that, and the elites can’t stand it. Tough. History and common sense say they’ll win again.
Now for my own love, Australia. Australia ought to take a hard look at tariffs and quit pretending it’s too small to play the game. The U.S. built its muscle on import duties, and Australia, sitting on a treasure trove of resources, could do the same. Instead of letting cheap foreign goods flood the market and gut local industries, slap tariffs on imports that undercut Aussie workers. we could use the cash to fund infrastructure, new ports (not the ones we sold to China), roads, and mines, without jacking up payroll taxes that punish effort.
The goal isn’t isolation, it’s leverage. Australia’s got what the world wants, we’ve got iron, coal, gas, so why not make others pay a premium while keeping homegrown businesses alive? Tax consumption, not labour, and watch the economy shift from dependency to self-reliance. The whiners will call it protectionism, but it’s just common sense. Build your own house before renting it out.
The bureaucrats and globalists down under will howl, of course, they love their free-trade dogma and cozy deals with China. But Australia’s bleeding jobs and revenue to overseas players while its tax system chokes workers and small firms. Tariffs flip that script. They’d cut the red tape of bloated taxation, shrink the government’s footprint, and put money back where it belongs, in people’s pockets. Look at Trump’s playbook, tariffs didn’t just raise cash, they forced trading partners to the table. Australia could do that, flex its export clout to negotiate better terms, not just roll over. The people would eat it up, lower taxes on their sweat, stronger local industries, and a government that doesn’t need to play nanny. It’s not about hiding from the world. It’s about standing tall in it, and that’s what we used to do best. Oh, that was before we let some Houso into parliament house. From the author.
The opinions and statements are those of Sam Wilks and do not necessarily represent whom Sam Consults or contracts to. Sam Wilks is a skilled and experienced Security Consultant with almost 3 decades of expertise in the fields of Real estate, Security, and the hospitality/gaming industry. His knowledge and practical experience have made him a valuable asset to many organizations looking to enhance their security measures and provide a safe and secure environment for their clients and staff.
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