I'm John Batchel with David E. Burt.

He's a senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, writing about reciprocal tariffs, which are right now.

The word tariff means in the news right now, reciprocal tariffs.

You do that, we'll do this.

You do this?

We'll do that.

And the EU,

these last hours, is responding to the rays of tariffs on aluminum and steel imports into the U.S. by putting comparable tariffs out on an enormous amount of goods out of the EU, reciprocal tariffs.

Now we're going to get Tony here because David does, and he quotes from the very famous Adam Smith.

And Adam Smith has a warning from the 18th century to the 21st, when there is no probability that any such repeal can be procured, repeal of a tariff.

It seems a bad method of compensating the injury done to certain classes of our people to do

another injury ourselves, not only to those classes, but to almost all the other classes of them.

There's the warning. David,

what is to be done? Well, you've got, let me give you an example about what needs a solution.

The Europeans know that we impose a two and a half percent tariff on incoming European cars,

Porsches, Mercedes, Volkswagen.

They impose tariffs that are far larger against products of the U.S. flowing to Europe.

What is to be done with that?

Is there a practical way to answer it?

Sure.

So Adam Smith's warning is, I think, very prescient for today.

You know, he's really saying that if you're not going to be able to secure the lowering

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