Now, Let’s Talk About Tariffs
Because all the reporting I’m seeing is missing or burying the headline
Trump’s really been turning up the heat on promises of ever-more-massive tariffs in the last days of his campaign, going so far as to repeatedly claim he wants to do away completely with income tax in this country by paying for everything with tariffs instead.
Yet all the reporting I’m seeing is focused on one of two things:
- Can that work?
- Does he even understand how a tariff works?
But neither of those things matter. Because:
- Even if it can work, and
- Regardless
Either way, people in the US are going to be paying a whole lot more for imported goods. Because whomever it is initially paying the added costs of the tariffs to the US treasury, is going to pass those added costs along.
Now, even though it is — in effect — a gigantically huge new tax, I’m not going to call it that, because that opens the door for Trump to do a bit of a mind flip and preach that Americans won’t be paying these tariffs; countries that have been “ripping us off” will be. So let’s take it completely within Trump’s context.
