From mercantilism to Trump's tariffs

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From mercantilism to Trump's tariffs

by Constantine Rover
https://luogocomune.net/economia/dal-mercantilismo-ai-dazi-di-trump

In recent years, the United States - especially during the presidency of Donald Trump - has relaunched an economic strategy that seemed outdated: that of customs duties, i.e. taxes imposed on imported products. The goal? Correct a deep economic imbalance: the US buys much more than it sells, accumulating a huge trade deficit.

But behind this choice there is much more than a simple fiscal maneuver. It is a real vision of the world, inspired by an ancient economic doctrine: mercantilism.

What is mercantilism?

Mercantilism was born between the 16th and 18th centuries and is based on a simple principle: a nation becomes rich if it exports more than it imports. At the time, gold was accumulated; today, the aim is to sell more, produce more and protect the value of one's currency. To do this, actions are implemented, one of which is trade barriers, such as duties.

This logic puts cooperation between countries on the back burner and focuses everything on competition: each state tries to defend its internal market and limit dependence on foreign countries.

Historically, mercantilism was born as a barrier to the hegemony of Holland, which at the time was the largest commercial, and therefore economic, power in the world. A bit like China today, to which the United States has decided to put a barrier only to arrive one day at a direct clash on a completely different terrain.

It is also in the same period that, precisely in an attempt to acquire a competitive advantage in an ingenious way and cut off the road to Dutch hegemony, the first experiments in production engineering were born, that is, production systems capable of lowering the price of their goods, that is, acquiring competitiveness with respect to the Dutch, who were enormously advantaged from a commercial, naval and geographical point of view.

Just as Americans today consider China as a sworn enemy, so it happened in the eighteenth century, when France and Germany in particular did the same with the Netherlands. It was in that period that the ideas and strategies of economic and financial warfare took shape as an alternative means to armed wars.

It is here, in practice, that the idea of ��superpower in the modern sense was born, because it combines military force financed by trade surpluses, which serve to finance actual wars.

In practice, mercantilism allowed gold to be accumulated to invest in armies and armaments for the conquest of resource-rich territories.

Today, through the strategy of mercantilism, we are witnessing a very similar military and commercial expansionism. Just as China and Russia are expanding into Africa, so Germany has transformed Europe into a supplier in its own image and likeness.

The United States, on the other hand, has based its hegemony mainly on military and monetary colonization, through the dollar lever (this is called imperialism). Today, however, this is no longer sufficient.

Just as the Roman Empire collapsed when it ran out of gold, because it spent it on buying what it needed to sustain itself, including both resources and material goods, rather than producing them itself, so today the United States finds itself with a declining currency, with which it imports disproportionate volumes of resources and consumer goods.

In Roman times, the concept of credit did not yet exist. Today, by contrast, Trump can use the shortcut of the complex system of trade accounts to cut off competitors and try to keep alive a fading empire.

Costantino Rover's website: Economics explained easily  https://economiaspiegatafacile.it/2025/04/10/dazi-americani-spiegati-facile/