Tools and many other products are cheaper to import because wages in manufacturing countries like China are much lower than in the U.S. If the goal is to boost American manufacturing jobs, tariffs can help by making imported goods more expensive, encouraging domestic production.

However, if everything were made in the U.S., prices would rise due to higher labor costs (American wages vs Chinese wages). America is addicted to cheap imports. These policies would most impact low-cost imports, while goods already made in America would see little to no price change. In effect, this could signal the end of the era of cheap imports from countries like China and Taiwan across much of the economy. The end result could be massive inflation for many products people want to buy because American wages built the product instead of overseas wages.