Published April 1, 2025
President Donald Trump intends to launch his much-awaited tariff program on Wednesday. The administration is labeling this “Liberation Day” on the theory that tariffs will bring manufacturing back to the United States, thereby liberating us from dependence on foreign companies and labor.
It’s not at all clear, however, that Trump or his team understand how tariffs work. That failure could be fatal to their plans, harming both the economy and the Republican Party’s midterm chances.
Tariffs are simply a tax on imports. A person or a company bringing a good into the country must pay a certain percentage of that good’s price to the federal government for the right to use or resell it.
Click here to continue reading.
Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.
