CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Exporters Still Are Not Eating the Trump Tariffs: They are Taxes on Us

As we all know, Donald Trump likes to play the tough guy. Unfortunately, he often does it in really foolish ways, and this time I’m not talking about his war against Iran.

I’m talking about Trump’s tariffs. From the way he talks, he seems to think that foreign countries are sending us checks equal to the tariffs he has imposed on U.S. imports from them. Donald Trump’s mind can be a scary place, so it’s not worth trying to tease out his thought process, except to point out that the idea that foreigners are sending us checks is absurd.

The tariffs are collected here when the goods show up at a customs office. The party paying the tariff most immediately is the importer. The importer could be a wholesaler who may resell it to a retail store, manufacturer, or other business. Or in many cases, it will be a larger retailer like Amazon or Walmart, who........

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