Yes exactly but you're reading too much into the intentions.
Lets say there's a tariff to encourage those little bags of screws that home depot sells to possibly come from the USA instead of China, or at least tax the Chinese because they do govt funded product dumping to make the market unfair. Really it doesn't matter why. The point is we want to discourage retail sales of Chinese screws for whatever reason, possibly even valid reasons.
Given the above... if I'm importing screws to build cars, and our govt likes domestic auto production, the govt doesn't want to screw me over with high screw taxes such that people buy Japanese cars instead. What they want is people at home depot not buying little bags of chinese screws, what they don't want is instead of "making" 1 cent of taxes on screws they'd lose 1 dollar of taxes on my electric cars because my cars would be too expensive compared to untaxed japanese cars or whatever.
So I apply for an exemption, but seeing as you don't employ me, so I'm gonna spec "M3-0.5 16 mm long SSHS grade 6 anti-corrosion finish screw". There's no point in me paying my lawyers to get an exemption for "screws" in general, just so that you don't have to pay for an exemption to import screws for your internet connected toaster. I mean, good luck with your internet connected toaster product... but pay for your own lawyers.
It is admittedly kinda silly to try to centrally control large scale industrial operations by taxing material components, why not do social control of operations directly by tax codes for electric car factories and internet connected toaster makers, but here we are doing tax code stuff on the parts that make those toasters or whatever.
> why not do social control of operations directly by tax codes for electric car factories and internet connected toaster makers, but here we are doing tax code stuff on the parts that make those toasters or whatever.
The West pretty much doing that already in more ways than one.
Last G7 was all about finding new ways to tax new industries
Lets say there's a tariff to encourage those little bags of screws that home depot sells to possibly come from the USA instead of China, or at least tax the Chinese because they do govt funded product dumping to make the market unfair. Really it doesn't matter why. The point is we want to discourage retail sales of Chinese screws for whatever reason, possibly even valid reasons.
Given the above... if I'm importing screws to build cars, and our govt likes domestic auto production, the govt doesn't want to screw me over with high screw taxes such that people buy Japanese cars instead. What they want is people at home depot not buying little bags of chinese screws, what they don't want is instead of "making" 1 cent of taxes on screws they'd lose 1 dollar of taxes on my electric cars because my cars would be too expensive compared to untaxed japanese cars or whatever.
So I apply for an exemption, but seeing as you don't employ me, so I'm gonna spec "M3-0.5 16 mm long SSHS grade 6 anti-corrosion finish screw". There's no point in me paying my lawyers to get an exemption for "screws" in general, just so that you don't have to pay for an exemption to import screws for your internet connected toaster. I mean, good luck with your internet connected toaster product... but pay for your own lawyers.
It is admittedly kinda silly to try to centrally control large scale industrial operations by taxing material components, why not do social control of operations directly by tax codes for electric car factories and internet connected toaster makers, but here we are doing tax code stuff on the parts that make those toasters or whatever.