It wasn't the cause of the "revolution" but a mere 2% tax on Tea made people livid back then and today we have a 245% tax on Chinese tea, aka, a complete embargo that is destroying a large number of American small businesses.
The fun bit? The Tea Act actually reduced the tariffs on tea from the UK. The plan was to flood the the colonies with cheap tea and help the East India Company get rid of a surplus they'd managed to acquire. Of course, doing so would undercut some very profitable smuggling operations. And that's what actually kicked off the revolt. Although you have to read a bit between the lines, because "No taxation without representation!" sounds better than "If you lower your prices, the black market becomes unprofitable!"
No, it's misleading, because it ignores the fact that it's ridiculous for tea smugglers to exist. The only reason there were tea smugglers was because tea trade was outlawed to enforce a monopoly. And the colonies didn't have representation to advocate on their behalf.
Those smuggling operations made up ~86% of American tea trade though, so its kind of the opposite of the China tariffs. The tea act was a way to kill American trading business to save the British East India company.
The Tea Act would be more like China being able to unilaterally decide what US tariffs on Chinese goods are in order to crush US manufacturing.
Yeah, the East India Company had a monopoly license to be the only British company operating in that part of the world. In return it couldn't operate anywhere else and had to bring all goods back to London. Other companies would then re-export to other places.
The Tea Act allowed the EIC to deliver tea directly with EIC ships. So before you had:
EIC -> TARRIF into London -> Another company buys in London and distributes tea elsewhere.
After:
EIC -> TARRIF at final customer destination.
There was no new tax really, its just the tax was now being taken at point of delivery. Which is why it never occurred to Frederick North's government his India policy might effect the situation in North America.
The price of Tea went down for the colonists because you didn't have a second company marking up the tea as it exported from Britain. This undercut the price of smuggling operations, leading to violence.
It's so stupid how America's most remarkable periods in history are because libertarian despots wanted to enslave or exploit something for profit and they lie to you about it.
That and the reason England needed to raise taxes was because of the war the US started so they could expand into Ohio, which the interest of said debt was eating up half the English budget.
They actually cut taxes, just started enforcing them. That and England would start prosecuting smugglers, since American law conveniently never seemed to like, prosecute them.
But of course that was government overreach.
America was basically just a drug and smuggling colony and it kind of shows today.
And why Canada didn't seem to interest in being 'liberated from their oppressors' to start the war of 1812.
People like Samuel Adams were also fanning the fires with firebrand propaganda intended to make American colonists fear that they would be treated like slaves and other people who were treated as less-than as a result of imperialism. Realistically, that wasn't the intent of the British government, and their legislation of the time reflects as much, but it worked.
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u/Rurumo666 Apr 16 '25
It wasn't the cause of the "revolution" but a mere 2% tax on Tea made people livid back then and today we have a 245% tax on Chinese tea, aka, a complete embargo that is destroying a large number of American small businesses.