To be, or not to levy: that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of trade imbalances, Or to take tariffs against a sea of imports, And by imposing, end them? To tax, to charge; No more; and by a charge to say we end The deficit and the thousand economic shocks That markets are heir to - 'tis a policy Devoutly to be wished. To tax, to charge; To charge, perchance to tweet - ay, there's the rub: For in that charge of duty what blows may come, When we have shuffled off this free market coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of such long trade wars.
For who would bear the costs of cheaper goods, The businessman's wrong, the proud farmer's contumely, The pangs of falling stocks, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th'unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare signature? Who would tariffs bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary debt, But that the dread of something worse than taxes, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No economy returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of second thoughts, And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. Suspend all tariffs... Nay, impose them! Soft you now, The fair economy! Markets, in thy orisons, Be all my tweets remembered.