Tariffs end up being worse than taxes. They get collected, passed on to consumers, overturned by courts, and then handed to the companies that raided prices.
Tariffs end up being worse than taxes. They get collected, passed on to consumers, overturned by courts, and then handed to the companies that raided prices.
They are worse in other ways as well. They reduce incentive for local businesses to be competitive. They also make it harder to be competitive because access to top manufacturing equipment becomes harder. To get incompatibility similar to Galapagos effect as tariffs remain.
Argentina and Brazil should be a warning example to everyone. The paper Argentina Paradox by Taylor gives good insights into how trade barriers played a fundamental role in hurting this once very prosperous economy.
I think they proved last year that most of the tarrifs were not going to consumers. It actually worked as an excellent business tax that did not get passed on. High tariffs are leftist ideology.
Reference?
Here is an article from the newyorkfed with an excerpt which isn't in line with what you are claiming. And it is quite likely that even those that didn't raise prices initially, aren't going to keep absorbing those costs forever (no such thing as free-lunch), these studies were done only 3 months into the tarriffs.
https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/06/are-bu...
"Consistent with textbook economics, tariffs generally resulted in higher prices to customers. Indeed, roughly half of businesses reported raising prices of goods directly subject to tariffs. Interestingly, a significant share of businesses also reported raising the selling prices of their goods and services unaffected by tariffs. Many businesses indicated they increased prices to cover other rising costs such as wages and insurance, though it is possible that in some cases, businesses were taking advantage of an escalating pricing environment to increase prices. For example, something similar happened in 2018-19 as firms increased their prices on dryers when tariffs rose on washing machines from China, even though dryers were not subject to tariffs."
Oh you think they did, huh?
Pack it in everybody! This guy thinks they worked as intended, that’s all the evidence needed! Case closed!
Ignore the way everything is more expensive. Ignore the way everything on digikey has a dedicated tariff column. Ignore the general chaos and the rest of what your lying eyes see, a hackernews throwaway account is pretty sure that the new tax on imports is unrelated to imports being more expensive.