In fact, Donald Trump’s insistence that American consumers do not suffer from tariffs is entirely borne out by the data.
Neither the tariffs placed on steel and aluminum imposed a year ago nor the more recent ten percent tariff on Chinese goods pushed prices of goods sold to consumers up. And now we have price data from May that once again indicate no tariff pricing pressure on consumers.
So who is paying for the tariffs? We know the U.S. government has collected billions in tariffs, so it is clear that someone is footing the bill. But keep in mind that when journalists and lobbyists claim, “tariffs are taxes on consumers,” this is inaccurate.
Tariffs are taxes, to be sure. But unlike a sales tax or a gas tax, consumers do not directly pay any tariffs. Tariffs are paid by importers, often large U.S. companies that are importing from their own foreign subsidiaries or foreign contractors. But businesses cannot raise their prices just because their costs or taxes go up. Sometimes they have to absorb the costs.
In addition, the Chinese currency has depreciated over the past year, which makes imports from China less expensive. And there is anecdotal evidence that Chinese manufacturers are slashing prices in an attempt to hold on to market share in the U.S. China’s government may be subsidizing this directly in some cases and in other cases supporting it by lowering the price of credit to exporting businesses.
“We have put 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese goods coming into our country, including $50 billion of high technology equipment. You haven’t seen any, or virtually any, price increase,” President Trump said on Monday. “Because what China does is they subsidize their companies because they want to keep people working and they want to stay competitive.”
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2019/06/11/tariffs-producer-price-index/
I have an unhealthy hope Hicks fixation