It’s clear to any but the most economically-illiterate that the mad emperor has absolutely no idea how tariffs actually work; it’s especially obvious in his claims that they are paid by foreign countries, and that he wants to establish a new “External Revenue Service” to collect them. Given the complete disconnect between Trump’s idea of tariffs and the actual reality of tariffs, the only logical conclusion is that when Trump barfs up the word “tariffs”*, what he is really imagining is “tribute”: money paid by client kingdoms for protection by an empire. Listen to his rhetoric about Ukraine and NATO; he wants to be paid annual tribute for protection. Basically, he wants to make the US status as the world’s cop official, complete with the cop power to terrorize whoever he likes on a whim without anything resembling consequences.
*Exactly like a dog barfing up something unidentifiable but undoubtedly disgusting right in the middle of the living-room rug.
I disagree with Trump in general, however tariffs have a place in that they fix the handicapping of our workforce and industry due to imbalances caused by things such as wage and environmental arbitrage often as bad as people being literal slaves in their Countries (China) and the use of child labor in horrific conditions. In addition, some Sovereigns subsidize their industries to dominate sectors of the world market. Once proper tariffs are in place, the cost of shipping goods makes it uneconomic to undercut our local producers. The extra cost of the tariff also directly reduces inflation which lowers costs overall for the population even if a particular now subject to tariff good costs slightly more. Most fail to understand this point.