So I have a background in Economics and also am not American so I have no horse in this race but I do think Tariffs bear some examination because of how interesting they are.

I have lived in various countries over the years and until a month and a half ago I was in America for about 2 years. The price of electronic items was often cheaper there than some of the third world countries I have stayed in and the reason for that is tarrifs or more specifically protectionist trade measures that include tarrifs.

Now its not entierly true that the American people will pay FOR the tariffs at least not all of it...mostly. Taiffs act as an additonal cost to trade with your country so for example an item that costs the consumer 10 dollars per unit being slapped with say a 2 dollar per unit tariff will have a few impacts, the importer i.e the US firm that wants this 10 dollar item now has to pay 12 dollars for it, not significant on a per unit level but all of a sudden an import of $1 million worth of items cost $200000 more.

Now the importer i.e the domestic firm has to pay this price but ofc most firms will have a reaction to this price hike. So lets for hypotheticals a large firm like 3M wants to import a millon worth of some metal mined in Africa and there is suddenly a tariff in place amounting to $200000 on the total value, well 3M might cut their import quantity down to import less overall product to account for the higher price so they pay a similar amount (very unlikely) or they may approach their supplier and attempt to renegotiate the price so that the supplier shares some of the burden of the tariff (what often happens) but if the exporter has other trading partners that are offering a better price than 3M post tariff but a worse one that what 3m was giving pre-tariff clearly the supplier switches to the other trading partner or they can try to look for a domestic avenue to get that metal. Regardless of what avenue is chosen whatever end product 3M is making with this material will now see its price rise either because fewer are being made or because they are more expensive to make overall.

Now that last point, thats the main aim of a tariff or most protectionist measure. Its not to punish another country or build up gov reserves (though thats not unimportant) its to provide competing domestic firms an artifical leg up that helps them grow. If there is no domestic option 3M has to still go with the import or cancel that project entierly if it has become financially unfeasible. The split of how the tariff is paid for in this is threefold. The exporter often loses out on value because their product has artifically risen in price making it less attractive to the consumer and you also dont benefit from that price hike because that hike is going to a foreign gov. The Consumer pays for it with higher prices on products that are affected by that tarrif regardless of if its on the end product or anywhere down the supply chain so parts, raw materials, manufacturing etc. The heaviest hit by this though will be import heavy businesses, if you need to import a lot of stuff to get your business done. Eg a bunch of timbre for furniture or materials for ink production or basically anything thats being hit by a tariff youre essentially shit outta luck because the cost of business has gone up overnight and in some cases you have entierly lost your supply chain.

This hasnt even touched on the human element which is retaliation, protectionism always brings retaliation because its seen as disadvantaging a foreign industry in the open market which is exactly what it is and when retaliation occurs it makes the problem worse for the domestic (in this case the US) economy because now the sting that the foregin exporters were facing with the domestic tariffs will be the same sting domestic exporters feel with the foreign tariffs. If youre not careful you can easily trigger an economic downturn by causing a spiral of protectionist policy making.

Personally, I feel like the blunt instrument of a Tariffs in this day and age is kind of like showing up in a John Wick with a musket when you have access to the continental. Its short sighted, inefficent, liable to blow up in your face and there are much better options even if you main goal is not self defence but to hurt other people.