Those who object to the border-adjustment proposal — chiefly retailers who sell imported goods — claim that there will be exorbitant price increases for consumers. But there is reason to think any such increases would be smaller than critics suggest, as the tax would be applied only to the (lower) wholesale price at the border, not to the (higher) retail price in their stores.

In the meantime, if retailers intend to pass along the full cost of the tax to their customers, perhaps those higher prices could be mitigated for lower-income Americans by a tax credit phased out over, say, three years — during which time retailers should be able to find or help establish American suppliers to meet their needs at lower cost.

There is some question about whether a border-adjustment tax would be rejected by the World Trade Organization as an import barrier or export subsidy. But an American border tax would not be different in any relevant way from the longstanding consumption taxes that our foreign competitors currently enjoy with the blessing of the W.T.O., so it should not be judged any differently. If the W.T.O. — principally a bureaucratic collaboration of America’s competitors — were to reject an American border-adjustment tax, it might well be time for the United States to re-evaluate its relationship with that organization.

Theoretically, tax systems should collect revenue efficiently and distort markets as little as possible. But in an age of large-scale market distortion driven in part by the consumption taxes of our foreign competitors, why should American companies like mine be unilaterally disadvantaged because of misplaced fealty to an idealized tax system?

The United States economy is a big ship, and it can’t turn on a dime. However, a border-adjustment tax would provide a large impetus toward fixing many of the problems afflicting us.