Letters | Tariff protection

I refer to the recent articles about the possible closure firstly of the steel mills belonging to Acellor Mittal in Newcastle as well as the possible liquidation of Hulett Tongaat sugar mills in KwaZuluNatal. Both articles point out the horrendous loss of jobs to the local communities and the resultant hardship to all concerned. None of the articles refer to the loss of revenue to SARS in the form of VAT and company profits.

These losses will be exacerbated by reduced spending by all employees and their families now to be unemployed. One of the first rules one learns in Economics is that no country should import items into their country that they are capable of producing/growing themselves. Unfortunately when Keynes wrote his books on Economics there was very little if any “dumping” i.e.

countries supplying goods to other countries at ridiculously low prices just to get rid of the goods. Despite China and others making this “dumping” a common practice, South Africa should take a leaf out of Donald Trumps rule book and apply heavy tariffs on sugar and steel imports into South Africa. In that way the playing fields are levelled and South African jobs, industries, and farmers protected as well as swelling SARS coffers.