I really like Rand but, yeah, sometimes he's too principled.

Also, as someone who is fairly libertarian myself, I really don't agree with the libertarians on tariffs. I think it's a major blind spot for them. Just like how lefty "libertarians" believe in open boarders, and don't see the contradiction with property rights, libertarians in general want complete global trade, and see any protectionism as anti-free-trade. I'm not well versed in economics, so I could even be wrong, but it just seems terribly shortsighted.

I don't want the government mucking about too much in economics but, just like with the physical boarder, international economics seems like it's totally the domain of the government...or it gets hard to keep a nation. Pure laissez-faire globalist trade has been a fucking disaster, and has helped worsen our economic prospects. We have to disincentivize corporations outsourcing jobs to slave countries and, as sad as it is as a libertarian, a government is probably just about the only ones who can do that.

Unless we want to keep spiraling down the drain, we need something like tariffs. Doesn't mean this initiative is executed perfectly or even well, but the "open boarders" argument for economics is a hard sell for me.

We need to do things in order. If, for the sake of argument, global free trade is truly a good thing...well, unless every nation is playing the same game, that can't happen. So we should focus on the domestic economy first, then maybe try to open up the rest of the world to free and fair trade. Which, ironically, is part of the stated goal of these tariffs! These tariffs are, on paper at least, trying to create more free and open trade. Again, doesn't mean this operation is perfect, but I think the libertarians - usually good on many aspects of economics, in my opinion - miss the mark on this big time.