Quotas Are Worse Than Tariffs, National Taxpayers Union Says
Quotas are worse than tariffs, as importers are left without even the choice of paying more for the goods they want, the Free Trade Initiative of the National Taxpayers Union said in a policy brief published April 23. That's for…
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absolute quotas, as have been implemented for steel from South Korea, Argentina and Brazil. The brief notes that quotas can be highly bureaucratic -- there are 54 categories of quotas for steel from those three countries. "As bad as tariffs are, at least they generate revenue for the federal government, as President Trump has repeatedly pointed out," the brief says. "In contrast, quotas drive up prices by restricting imports, but the federal government doesn’t collect a dime." The U.S. uses tariff rate quotas for sugar, which the brief also considers worse than tariffs. "As a result of tariff-rate quotas on sugar imports, Americans pay twice the world price for sugar," NTU's Bryan Riley wrote.