President Donald Trump departs after signing an executive order at an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden of the White House, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Washington.

Barriers to free and unfettered trade may well appear inefficient as a matter of an economic model’s deadweight loss — and they may well conflict with David Ricardo’s much-heralded 19th ...

Tariffs are explicitly designed to create what is called a deadweight loss; not only do people pay the tariff, they also make inefficient choices to avoid paying the tariff, reducing economic output.

“Tariffs do create deadweight loss, so we can expect them to exact some costs on the US economy,” Sarah Bauerle Danzman of the Atlantic Council said in a statement.

This result weighs on the economy, Blanco says. “Tariffs actually create a deadweight loss” in which the consumer loses more than the producer gains, she explains.

A blunt ruling that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs undercuts Trump’s ability to use tariffs as a “credible threat” in trade talks, the Department of Justice wrote in an emergency motion to ...

“Broad-based tariffs tend to exacerbate economic inefficiencies, leading to a greater deadweight loss compared to more targeted tariffs on emerging industries,” said Jeffrey Roach, chief ...

Learn how taxes create deadweight loss in society. Learn how this loss can be reduced, depending on certain characteristics of the product and the consumer.

Worse still, tariffs also crimp economic growth by creating “deadweight loss”, as demand is skewed towards domestic companies even when they are less efficient.

Barriers to free and unfettered trade may well appear "inefficient" as a matter of an economic model's "deadweight loss"—and they may well conflict with David Ricardo's much-heralded 19th ...

Barriers to free and unfettered trade may well appear "inefficient" as a matter of an economic model's "deadweight loss" — and they may well conflict with David Ricardo's much-heralded 19th ...