If you were a retailer, suppose you were Gap, Inc and you were opening 2 different stores in 2 different shopping malls: Would you expect to pay more for rent in a upscale luxury mall that does 5x the volume of a lower tier mall in poorer area?
Point being is merchants already implicitly pay more to access higher end markets, thus tariffs don't really break the model that much.
A much larger and thornier question is: Is it really "free trade" if your trading partner uses slave labor to make their goods?
Beyond that, its really a simple question.
If you were a retailer, suppose you were Gap, Inc and you were opening 2 different stores in 2 different shopping malls: Would you expect to pay more for rent in a upscale luxury mall that does 5x the volume of a lower tier mall in poorer area?
Point being is merchants already implicitly pay more to access higher end markets, thus tariffs don't really break the model that much.
A much larger and thornier question is: Is it really "free trade" if your trading partner uses slave labor to make their goods?