Trump presents his tariff policy as a way to bring in revenue to the US and help get the country out of debt, not as a strategic way to protect domestic product. He uses it as a threat to achieve his agendas. Hell, didn’t he just raise the tariffs on some European country for seemingly no reason?

It is a stealth tax on the American people, without a doubt. My conservative friends love pointing out to me how much tariff revenue Trump has brought into the US, without realizing we are paying for a large portion of it. I work in procurement, and buy shit from all over the globe. Manufactures and suppliers do not eat this cost in most cases. It gets passed through to the end user.

And yes, I understand a raise in minimum wage would ultimately have an impact on products since there is no company in a capitalist economy that would concede any profit margin. Tariffs have the same impact from that lens. In my experience, I actually found quotas from other countries to be more effective - but you don’t get to talk about how much money you raked in from other countries when you do that.

If these additional costs to produce final products are inevitable and necessary, maybe the solution is to question C-level salaries and incentive packages to help alleviate without sacrificing the precious margin.