Hello and welcome to Something's off with Andrew Heaton.

I'm your host Andrew Heaton, at least for now.

We've been in a trade war with China for about a year.

You may not have noticed, but all the same it's probably affected you. The trade war costs American

consumers like you and me over a billion dollars every month. For example,

President Trump put a $20 tariff on washing machines.

The idea behind it being that by making Chinese washing machines 20% more expensive,

American-made washing machines just became 20% more competitive.

Except, of course, that we also put a tariff on aluminum and steel,

which means American manufacturers who import steel, which is most of them, are suddenly paying for that as well.

And the result, from all of this, fewer and more expensive washing machines all around.

Now, for me, this isn't a huge deal. I'm a raving success story. I own three

different washing machines just because I can and in particular because I don't like to mix socks with capes. But for a poor family,

paying an extra $100 on a washing machine is money that doesn't go to something else.

It's weird that we're even having this debate because Adam Smith

figured that out that free trade is the best system two and a half centuries ago and

today in the 21st century pretty much all

economists even the irritating ones agree that tariffs are a bad idea and that

free trade between nations is good. Here's why. Let's say Scotland is great at growing whiskey, making whiskey, but it's bad at growing wine, because Scotland is basically a large green

sponge with some alcoholics on top, not great wine growing environment. Hypothetically, let's say some hatless mouth-breathing mercantilist

got into power in Scotland and wanted to protect the struggling anemic Scottish wine industry from the sneaky French.

After they put tariffs on that imported French wine, the French wine is more expensive,

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