“President Donald Trump and his allies have spent months promising that higher tariffs will usher in a “golden age” of wealth and prosperity for America.
Now, the administration and one of its biggest allies in Congress are pushing for a new round of stimulus checks seemingly aimed at easing the economic pain caused by…yes, those same tariff policies.
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The proposal to send out tariff-funded stimulus checks should at least put an end to two of the more nonsensical claims that the president and his pro-tariff allies have been making. First, this should confirm that Americans—not foreign governments or corporations—are footing the bill for the tariffs.
Second, the idea that tariffs can be used to close the budget deficit should be similarly put to bed. Some estimates suggest that tariffs are likely to widen the deficit (even without any stimulus checks being mailed out), as they will slow economic growth and reduce future tax revenue. Even if you ignore those dynamic projections, there’s a big problem: The $150 billion in tariff revenue collected so far this year can’t be used to pay down the budget deficit if it is first going to be redistributed to Americans in the form of rebate checks.
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If Trump and Hawley want to spare Americans the pain caused by tariffs, there is a much simpler solution here: Get rid of the tariffs.”
“Inflation accelerated again last month with global trade turmoil exacting a toll on consumer prices.
The Consumer Price Index rose 2.7% over the prior year in July, and 0.2% from June.
Airfares, used cars, and shelter costs all marched higher, while food prices held fairly steady. (Except for coffee — the morning staple continues to see steep price hikes.)”
“All taxes are paid by someone, and President Donald Trump’s tariffs are no exception to that rule. The question of who pays and in what amounts is likely to become even more of a focal point in the coming days and weeks, as the White House follows through on its threat to hit imports from dozens of countries with higher tariffs starting on August 1.
Economic data from the past few months, during which the Trump administration hiked tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada, China, and elsewhere, provide a preview of what’s to come after the August 1 tariffs hit: Higher prices for Americans.
That is, of course, what economists say tariffs do. Raising prices is really the only function of a tariff—which artificially inflates the price of imported goods to make them less attractive than domestic alternatives. Economists will also tell you that’s not the whole story. They say that domestic producers often raise prices as well, since imported competing goods are now more expensive. They also say that tariffs on raw materials and intermediate parts—like the Trump administration’s levies on steel, aluminum, and the parts necessary to build a car—will push up the cost of building other, more complex goods, and those higher costs will be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.
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There have been “relatively quick price responses to tariff announcements,” report a group of economists connected to the Harvard Business School’s Pricing Lab, which tracks prices throughout the economy. In a paper updated earlier this month, the Harvard economists report that there’s been a “cumulative increase in imported goods prices since early March” of approximately 3 percent. The paper relies on data from four major U.S. retail chains.
Their data show that prices for both imported and domestic goods have climbed since Trump took office, with foreign-made goods increasing more quickly thanks to two noticeable leaps that occurred right after Trump’s tariff announcements in early March and early April.
The supply of eggs only dropped a little bit, yet, the cost of eggs and the profits of big egg producing companies grew a lot. They took advantage of the situation to tell a story about an egg shortage, and made it more expensive for people to eat eggs.
The Federal Reserve took great and new action during the great recession, but they kept many of those policies afterwards, which can be dangerous and is an expansion of the Fed’s power.
“President Donald Trump threatened on Friday morning to raise prices on iPhones sold in the United States, as he threatened to slap a 25 percent tariff on Apple smartphones that aren’t built in the United States.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s (sic) that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”
In either outcome, consumers will have to pay more. A 25 percent tariff on iPhones built in other countries would, of course, artificially inflate prices. On the other hand, an American-made iPhone would likely be even more expensive: one estimate pegs the cost of an American-made iPhone at around $3,500.”
After WWII, the other manufacturing centers of the world were rebuilding from the war, leaving the U.S. as a manufacturing superpower. Post-war Americans had pent up demand and bought lots of goods. This allowed U.S. manufacturing to flourish. Later, those countries rebuilt and third world countries developed manufacturing. Allowing low-value manufacturing to be done in places like China allowed the U.S. to invest the money made into high-value things. Now, manufacturing is highly automated, so if low-value manufacturing returned, it would make everything more expensive and not bring many jobs because manufacturing doesn’t require many laborers.