Abominable Tariffs:#1 Free Trade

 

Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilts #1137 

Free Trade versus Tariffs? International trade is an economic concept not easy to understand. Having been in the fabric business for over 30 years and an amateur historian I thought I might try to explain what is going on in the rag trade with tariffs. I'll do a few posts here with history illustrated by some vintage cartoons and relevant quilt blocks from my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilts and its digital companion BlockBase+. You could make a pieced sampler quilt with the blocks to record the interesting times we are currently enduring.

"Crowning the Abomination"

1897 Cartoon by Darymple in Puck magazine depicting

"Tariffs" as a giant devilish king with a patchwork cape made of

varying taxes on various products.

Why "Crowning the Abomination?" The artist was satirizing South Carolina's 

overdramatic Senator John C. Calhoun's term for the Tariff of 1828 

Tariffs----domestic taxes on imported goods---have been related to two extremely unpleasant events in American history: the Civil War and the Great Depression. What next!

I know little about the economics of the 1930s Great Depression. I'll let Stephen Colbert and his writers speak about tariffs in the 1930s and today.

They raise import taxes to the highest level since the Great Depression. Never a great sign. Never a great sign to be compared to the worst thing ever.” — STEPHEN COLBERT

I'm not adding actual patterns for these sampler blocks.

They are relatively easy to draw and

 Hey, Why don't you have BlockBase+

that will draw them for you any size????

New York Times graph with addition

We quiltmakers are concerned about the current tariffs on cotton fabrics,

 taxes on us customers who are now paying more for

 our stash than we did a year ago.

The basic argument over the centuries: "Tariffs or Free Trade."

American Tariffs of 1828 meant the death of "Free Trade" between nations.

Retailer Jill Cherry, whose Modern Quilt Co. Facebook page has thousands of followers, did a post a few months ago about the economic aspects of the recent tariffs on printed cotton imports from countries like Japan, Korea and India who manufacture the fabric she sells and you buy. Reading the comments after she announced that her sales reps told her fabric prices are going up made me realize many of her customers have no idea how cotton is manufactured, what tariffs are or how they are going to affect our fabric budgets.

Who can blame them? Economics has long been known as the "dismal science." It's BORING and really not easy to understand since it's often based on contradictory theories. However, as quiltmakers we should understand some basics about the economics of fabric production, which I will try to explain in this post through a couple of Jill's customer comments. I'll try here and in the next few posts to outline how tariffs work, the damage they've caused in the past and how the new taxes will affect the cotton market.

Drama in an American mill in a 1927 movie

Comment #1: Is any [quilt] fabric made in U.S.?

Jill: "Not that I sell." 

A commenter who apparently thought she might be helpful directed us to this website headed: "Best 15 Quilt Fabric Manufacturers in USA You Need 2025"

https://fandafabrics.com/quilt-fabric-manufacturers-in-usa/

There you will find the names of familiar companies. Like much of the internet this website is a big fat LIE. If you don't want to be fooled you have to analyze information. The American companies listed there import cotton fabric from foreign manufacturers and wholesale it in the U.S.

Don't just believe it because you want to. 

WE DO NOT PRODUCE QUILT-QUALITY COTTON PRINTS IN THE U.S.

Comment #2: Maybe some of these companies will ship some production stateside.

Mary: I know that’s the notion people have but that’s just not feasible. Not only would it take years to create a plant to do that job we would still pay the higher prices because workers here expect to be paid much more. Any savings would be years away and would evaporate due to costs of doing business.

Me: Not going to happen. We cannot grow high-quality cotton here. We abandoned our own infrastructure thirty or forty years ago to let the rest of the world print with modern technology.

Comment #3: Hoping the short term pain leads to long term gain.

Krystal: Very unlikely outcome. The President and those around him seem to have a complete lack of understanding about how manufacturing actually happens as well as how global supply chains work. This is in addition to their complete lack of understanding about what a tariff actually is. A tariff is a TAX on American consumers.

Me: What would be a good long-term gain? We are not going to start printing quiltmakers' cotton that  we grow here. Over the posts in the next few weeks I'll cover more history, agriculture and economics to explain why tariffs have the consequences they do. And show you a few more pieced blocks.