40 top economists unanimously agree: Steel and aluminum tariffs will not make America great

From Mark Perry.

"A panel of 40 economists at some of America’s top universities (MIT, Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Princeton, Stanford and UC-Berkeley) were asked in a survey conducted by the Initiative on Global Markets (Chicago Booth School of Business) if they agree or disagree that the statement “imposing new US tariffs on steel and aluminum will improve Americans’ welfare.”

When their answers were weighted by each economist’s confidence in his or her answer, 76% of the experts strongly disagreed and 24% disagreed, and none agreed or were uncertain! As I’ve mentioned several times recently on CD recently (here and here) the math of protectionism is pretty simple, and pretty ugly, in terms of its predictable negative effects on the economy. 100% of some of the top economists in the country agree."