China has complained that the European Union is being unfair in the manner and amount of the duties on Chinese steel entering the bloc. They’re right to do so as well although as ever when we mix politics and trade they’re doing so for the wrong reason. China is complaining because the tariffs and duties being imposed place a burden upon Chinese steel companies. Which is, of course, no concern whatsoever of the EU. Really, you’d be lucky to get something as sympathetic as a tant pis out of the Commission when they consider those Chinese companies. However, the complaint is still valid in that imposing tariffs on imports is a remarkably stupid thing to do. Because cheaper steel makes all consumers in the EU better off. And, of course, the aim and purpose of government is to make the people as well off as they possibly can be. And thus making people poorer by denying them cheap steel is not the point nor purpose of having a government nor indeed the EU itself.

So, wrong reason, right complaint at heart:

BEIJING (AP) — China has accused the European Union of hurting competition by imposing anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel, ratcheting up growing global tensions over a flood of low-cost Chinese exports.

The EU duties announced Friday are the latest in a series of measures taken by Europe, the United States and other trading partners in response to what they say are improperly low prices for Chinese steel. They complain the flood of Chinese exports is depressing global prices, hurting foreign competitors and wiping out jobs.

The point of trade is of course to gain access to things without domestic labour having to sweat over producing them. That’s what we’re trying to achieve with the whole process, that we get to consume stuff that we haven’t had to make. Complaining about imports killing jobs is thus to be barking up entirely the wrong tree.

China slammed the “unfair” investigation methods used by the European Union to impose further tariffs on two types of Chinese steel exports.

“Reckless trade protectionism and mistaken methods that limit fair market competition are not the proper ways to develop the European Union steel industry,” China’s commerce ministry said in a statement posted on its website yesterday night.

There is also this more specific complaint being made:

The substitute country investigation method used by the EU, a practice typically reserved for countries deemed non-market economies, are “unfair and unreasonable” and “seriously damage the interests of Chinese enterprises,” the Commerce Ministry said in a statement posted to its website late on Saturday.

That the European Union uses different rules for market and non-market economies is also a puzzle. Because, as we note, it is the consumers enjoying the cheap steel who benefit. And the difference between market and non-market economies is only in who is losing the money to make that steel cheap. And seriously, who cares? In a purely market economy it would be private sector actors (actually, capitalists) who would be losing their money as they sold steel cheaply. In a non-market economy we can assume that it’s some arm of government doing so. Or, in reality, the taxpayers of that place being made poorer by the subsidies. Our consumers still benefit equally whoever is losing the money. So, why change the rules if it is foreign taxpayers getting poorer rather than foreign capitalists?

Quite, it just doesn’t make sense. But then far too much of world trade is still governed, with respect to government action at least, as if mercantilism is true. And it isn’t, it really isn’t, we’ve known that since Adam Smith published 240 years ago.

The correct answer here is for no one, ever, to impose tariffs or duties upon imports of any kind for whatever reason. What other people want to do is up to them of course. But given that it is consumers who benefit from cheaper goods, consumers gaining a benefit being the point of the economy itself, it’s simply ludicrous to be insisting that our consumers cannot get their hands on that cheap stuff.

That is, unilateral free trade is the only sensible trade policy to have.