Yeah, I don't honestly think it will work simply because not everyone would adopt it.
You'd want to say something like "We are going to impose a 10% import/export tariff on all shipped/air transported goods" since land transport is a lot green than air or shipping.
The problem for the US is that if Mexico and Candida don't play ball, then what will happen is you'd see people shipping goods to Mexico and Candida and then ground transporting them into the US (That already happens now with Trump's tariffs. People are shipping to a non-tariffed country and than shipping it up to the tarriffed country).
So, what you end up needing to do is a 10% across the board tariff for all countries indiscriminately. But that can put you in a pretty big financial disadvantage if you are the only country doing that.
IDK, maybe someone will do it. I certainly wouldn't argue it for the EU, for example, simply because many of those countries are closer to each other than states in the US are.
I honestly don't know what the solution is to the shipping problem. It is a huge CO2 emitter and yet it's very nature resists any sort of financial disincentive. It is simply too easy to make goods switch hands in a non-taxed area to avoid taxes.
Yeah, I think tariffs should be applied equally to all goods at the border.
Maybe you could achieve some sort of useful agreement where countries can get tarrif exemptions for meeting similar labor condition, quality, and pollution standards AND enforcing the same tarrif on any country not party to the agreement - making a 'raised standards' zone, somewhat similar to EU. Enforcement may add more complexity than its worth, though.
> So, what you end up needing to do is a 10% across the board tariff for all countries indiscriminately. But that can put you in a pretty big financial disadvantage if you are the only country doing that.
I don't think this would actually be that bad. For one tariffs go into the coffers: we can use those funds to subsidize local manufacturing of goods our country cannot produce competitively vs other nations and help achieve local economies of scale.
Yeah. The big thing for me is you'd want to discourage big shipping vessels burning bunker fuel. Even with equal pollution/labor standards, shipping something from china to the US probably shouldn't happen.
I could see an exception if nuclear powered shipping became a thing, but that isn't really likely (I wouldn't want a shipping company in charge of nuclear waste management). That leaves us with battery electric shipping and... well... that's a TON of batteries. Battery density would need to be WAY higher than it is (like, near fuel density)
Heh. I always like to challenge my ideas, if not from someone else then by myself. I don't think it is terribly healthy to be 100% sold on single ideas (or at least not to have thought about consequences).
The tariff idea was one that would work if everyone plays ball, but I'm not enough of an optimist to think that is going to work.
I wrote that without really thinking about the ramifications (until the second post). At which point, my pessimism won out.
Carbon tax could still work though (especially if it becomes a "carbon dividend" type plan). Probably it's biggest problem would be measuring carbon output.
You'd want to say something like "We are going to impose a 10% import/export tariff on all shipped/air transported goods" since land transport is a lot green than air or shipping.
The problem for the US is that if Mexico and Candida don't play ball, then what will happen is you'd see people shipping goods to Mexico and Candida and then ground transporting them into the US (That already happens now with Trump's tariffs. People are shipping to a non-tariffed country and than shipping it up to the tarriffed country).
So, what you end up needing to do is a 10% across the board tariff for all countries indiscriminately. But that can put you in a pretty big financial disadvantage if you are the only country doing that.
IDK, maybe someone will do it. I certainly wouldn't argue it for the EU, for example, simply because many of those countries are closer to each other than states in the US are.
I honestly don't know what the solution is to the shipping problem. It is a huge CO2 emitter and yet it's very nature resists any sort of financial disincentive. It is simply too easy to make goods switch hands in a non-taxed area to avoid taxes.