If that’s the goal, you announce tariffs are coming in a few years so that people scale up local production to avoid the higher costs.
In this case, there was like 4 months notice where all of it was undefined, so of course nobody did anything and now we still don’t have local production. Now, prices will go up and local producers (if they even build up) will match the new prices instead of keeping them low.
Congrats, worst of both worlds! We still have no local production and prices have gone up! Yay!
Even then, as a democracy, you can only do really mild tariffs as companies won’t trust the tariffs to stay high come the next government. You instead subsidise, in whatever form, including things like long-term supply contracts. If you want to push domestic ball point pen production, just order your administration to prefer buying domestic ball point pens if they’re within what 20% of the import price, then slowly reduce that rate but keep the preference to make sure your ballpoint pen industry is productive, efficient, and competitive. Make it a 10-year supply contracts the next government can’t just cancel. If you’re the US, give them to teachers to give children.
If that’s the goal, you announce tariffs are coming in a few years so that people scale up local production to avoid the higher costs.
In this case, there was like 4 months notice where all of it was undefined, so of course nobody did anything and now we still don’t have local production. Now, prices will go up and local producers (if they even build up) will match the new prices instead of keeping them low.
Congrats, worst of both worlds! We still have no local production and prices have gone up! Yay!
Even then, as a democracy, you can only do really mild tariffs as companies won’t trust the tariffs to stay high come the next government. You instead subsidise, in whatever form, including things like long-term supply contracts. If you want to push domestic ball point pen production, just order your administration to prefer buying domestic ball point pens if they’re within what 20% of the import price, then slowly reduce that rate but keep the preference to make sure your ballpoint pen industry is productive, efficient, and competitive. Make it a 10-year supply contracts the next government can’t just cancel. If you’re the US, give them to teachers to give children.