The Trump administration has both a tariff problem and an economic reasoning problem.

Recently, two senior officials have pushed back against a New York Fed study confirming the findings of other studies showing that American businesses and consumers paid for almost all of the 2025 tariffs with claims about tariffs that don't withstand scrutiny. Director of the National Economic Council's Kevin Hassett argued that tariffs make U.S. consumers better off by bringing production home and raising wages. Trade representative Jamieson Greer insisted that tariffs aren't regressive because "most consumption in America is done by the wealthiest people."

Both claims are not merely ...

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