Inconsistencies

As part of the Brexit debate, we are being told by Remainers that we need to protect home producers, which is what the EU's Single Market has done for the past 40 years. In other words, imports are a bad thing and dumped goods are the worst of all. American President Donald Trump is saying much the same thing - that US industry should be supported, by keeping out imported competitive goods. On the whole, it is the Remainers who are most critical of Trump for his alleged populism.

There is an inconsistency somewhere.

It doesn't stop there, either. The EU has imposed sanctions on Russia; i.e. it is refusing to allow certain goods to be sold to the country, which has had a damaging effect on agriculture in some EU countries. The US is following suit. North Korea is also the subject of this kind of sanction. Which is a further inconsistency.

If imports are a bad thing and should be restricted by tariffs, then sanctions must be good for Russia, North Korea and anyone else on the receiving end of them. In which case why are they being imposed? If dumping is a bad thing and we want to damage the economies of those countries, surely they should be the recipients of dumped goods and we should be sending shiploads of stuff in their direction, produced at below cost? That would also satisfy Trump's desire to rejuvenate the US steel industry.