I'm not a MAGA fan nor am I a card-carrying Conservative of record, but Trump's tariff strategy is nothing more than using the word "tariff" in place of the words "sales tax" in that either strategy achieves the same end... they provide tax revenue to the US government.
The thing is, Americans hate to be taxed because Americans don't fundamentally understand the concept of taxation in general and Trump doesn't want to be known as the President who imposed higher taxes on Americans.
One has to remember that Americans are born and raised to believe in white picket fences around homes, Chevrolets in every driveway, free lunch in everyone's lunch box and zero taxation if you vote Republican. If a President maintains that American illusion of reality, he will remain popular among voters.
So how does Trump achieve the higher taxation equivalent on the balance sheet if he won't raise taxes?
He simply imposes tariffs on every commodity that comes into the USA from foreign Nations. Tariffs however, are not absorbed by the manufacturer of those goods but instead are passed-on to the American consumer at point-of-sale. That's how it's typically done. Any foreign manufacturer who suggests that tariffs will erode their profits while heavily impacting their fiscal solvency, doesn't actually have a clue about running a business.
The cost of the goods exported from a foreign Nation to the USA are therefore increased by X% from the manufacturer (cost of goods + %tariff) at which point the US government taxes that increased amount of purchase price at the standard tax rate that is currently enjoyed in the USA.
The bottom line is, the American consumer pays for the tariff but doesn't actually know they are paying for it because the tariff is discretely blended into the cost of the goods.
The American consumer will then pay more tax on the cost of the goods than were previously charged by the Fed because the cost of the tariff is being added to the cost of the goods which are now being taxed higher than pre-tariff times in history, which is the equivalent of 'taxing tax'.
So, the Fed essentially double-dips each purchase transaction by capturing the tariff fee from the consumer ..and then capturing tax from the consumer for those goods ...but then captures additional tax from the artificially increased value of the goods which is the 'tariff portion' of the cost passed on to the consumer at point-of-sale.
This means the Fed is covertly taxing the American consumer 3 times without the consumer being aware of how much tax + tariff + tax-on-tariff that goes into the purchase price of the item in question.
