SCOTT BESSENT: Let's talk tariffs. It's time to revitalize Alexander Hamilton's favorite tool

Prior to the 16th Amendment, which authorized the individual income tax, tariffs had been one of the federal government’s chief sources of funding.

Scott Bessent serves as chief executive officer and chief investment officer for Key Square Group LP,  a Connecticut-based investment partnership that he founded in 2015. Bessent was chief investment officer for Soros Fund Management (SFM), the investment vehicle for the Soros Family and their foundations, from 2011 to 2015. He was an adjunct professor of Economic History at Yale University from 2006-2011.

Prior to the 16th Amendment, which authorized the individual income tax, tariffs had been one of the federal government’s chief sources of funding. Our first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, also happened to be America’s original proponent of tariffs. But after World War II, a consensus coalesced around multilateral tariff disarmament. The promise of this new free-trade consensus was that any economic dislocations caused by globalization would be offset by increased prosperity for all. In the U.S. especially, this conviction was accompanied by a faith that free trade would lead to political freedom in other countries such as Communist China. Neither of these predictions have proven to be correct.