In Defense of Tariffs?

Ed Feser argues for a postliberal middle ground on tariff policy which avoids both the errors of classical liberalism and rigid protectionism on trade.

Debate over President Trump’s tariff policy too often proceeds as if we are faced with a choice between classical liberal free trade theory on the one hand, and a rigid protectionism (perhaps even mercantilism) on the other. This is a false choice.

The Aristotelian-Thomistic natural law theorists who hammered out Catholic Social Thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had much of importance to say about these matters. Their inclination was to reject doctrinaire trade theories of either a free trade or protectionist kind. They advocated a middle ground position which recognized that concrete policy in this area greatly depends on the judgment of prudence and cannot be determined a priori by appeal to abstract principle. In my opinion, they provide a model for contemporary postliberal thinking about these matters.