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Depending on your source, definitions of the word tariff vary, but virtually all of them include the word “tax” or “duty.” Most etymologists say the word comes from the Italian tariffa, or “list of prices, book of rates,” derived in turn from the Arabic ta’rif, meaning “making known” or “to define.” For convenience sake we will go with Wikipedia’s simple definition: “A tariff is a tax on imports or exports between sovereign states.”

Ongoing trade discussions between the U.S. and China were high in the news cycle in March. The economic relationship between China and the U.S., which has expanded enormously during the last few decades, has been one filled with tensions, allegations of currency manipulation, outright theft of intellectual property (IP) and other speed bumps in the highway of trade between the two countries.

As I write this, the newly sworn 116th Congress of the United States is about a week old.

In late September, trade representatives from Mexico, Canada and the U.S. reached an agreement to replace NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was negotiated by the Clinton administration.

John Peter Zenger was a New York journalist who, in 1733, voiced his disagreement with the Crown’s governor in New York, William Cosby, who replaced a disagreeable judge with a more agreeable jurist. Zenger’s paper, the New York Weekly Journal, wrote articles critical of the royal governor, who in turn criticized the paper for its “divers scandalous, virulent, false and seditious reflections.”

It wasn’t too long ago that hybrid electric vehicles were a novelty on North American roads. Now they are common.

My previous column (April 2018) covered the March 1 imposition of tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. The Trump administration’s seemingly sudden declaration of a tariff policy became real when, on March 8, the President signed an order imposing a 25% tariff on imported steel and a 10% tariff on imported aluminum.