Trump & Tariffs

A False Epic of Economic Heroism

For over 180 years, tariffs were used in America to serve as most of the country’s income. We obtained imports, but we also paid a tax on them as the tariff costs were typically passed onto the consumers of the imported goods.

President Donald Trump, ostensibly a “very stable genius,” claims that when he imposes tariffs the exporting countries will pay the taxes and we will get a benefit from increased income. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Tariffs are nothing more than a form of taxation, and they are paid for by the people who consume the imports.

In today’s complicated trade and manufacturing regimes, goods are manufactured in, say, America, then shipped to Mexico for further processing, then returned to the U.S. for even more work, returned to Mexico for assembly, then returned to the U.S. for retailing. In this relatively common practice, the goods in question return to the U.S. twice, with tariffs applied with each customs entry on the C.I.F. (Costs, Insurance, and Freight) value of the merchandise into America. The merchandise is taxed twice, per the Tariff Schedules of the United States.

Now, the Twitterer-in-Chief, acting in accord with his false declarations of an “emergency” on our border with Mexico, has unilaterally decreed that he will, if necessary, declare…