Opinion | What Trump's tariffs mean for the price of your shirts

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : The tariff is collected by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at over 300 ports of entry across the land.
52% : Only then can we talk about what the Trump administration might be about to do in this space, perhaps as soon as this weekend, along with the economic and political implications.
51% : A fundamental concept in taxation -- and tariffs, again, are a tax -- is that the first person to pay the tax is not necessarily the last.
50% : Let's start by thinking through who could ultimately pay the tax.
49% : Perhaps the clearest example of this was when Trump imposed one of his first tariffs back in 2018 on imported washing machines.
48% : That would be a) the importing company, b) the exporting company, c) the consumer who ultimately buys the shirt, which, due to the tariff, is now more expensive (a fourth channel can occur through exchange rates, wherein a stronger dollar can offset part of the tax, but this effect tends to be small).
45% : That depends on details that are still dribbling out (e.g., will Canadian oil exports be exempted?).
44% : Tariffs are a tax on imports (and if there's any doubt whether tariffs are really taxes, note that Trump wants to change the name of these import-tax collectors to the "External Revenue Service").
42% : But let's just say, for the point of argument, that especially since Trump ran on lowering prices, making things more expensive isn't really his top goal.
36% : Yes, Trump claims he wants them to stop immigrant and fentanyl flows, but both countries have already successfully intervened to reduce these flows.
35% : Even the price of dryers, which weren't tariffed but are often sold with washers, also rose! Trump claims that the exporter pays the tariff, by lowering the price they charge to the importer.
31% : He may be right: one study of the trade war between U.S. and China during Trump's first term concluded that people "more exposed to import tariffs became less likely to identify as Democrats, more likely to vote to reelect Donald Trump in 2020, and more likely to elect Republicans to Congress.

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