On April 2nd, 2025, what President Donald Trump called “Liberation Day” was the start of an emergence of a new economic model. He declared a national emergency regarding the trade status of the United States, and 3 days later, reciprocal economic tariffs were implemented. In fact, on that day he announced those tariffs at The Rose Garden event, to quote him, “We're going to make it wealthy, good and wealthy. For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike. American steelworkers, auto workers, farmers and skilled craftsmen, we have a lot of them here with us today. They really suffered gravely.” (Trump, Donald) In this quote from President Trump, he frames his initiation of economic tariffs as a retaliatory, saying the country has been “looted, pillaged, and raped.” He frames tariffs more as a weapon opposed to the tool they have been used as historically. An economic source, Thomson Reuters analyzes the history of tariffs in an article. It finds that historically, tariffs were used as the main source of revenue for the government. They were brought to fame by Alexander Hamilton who advocated for their use in order to protect U.S industry from foreign competition. In the past, tariffs were able to force American industry to prosper. (Thomson Reuters) While this article frames economic tariffs as a tool for forcing industrial growth, the speech by President Trump does not, he frames them as a retaliatory, almost weaponlike structure. The topic of United States tariffs on imported goods is one of the most important to address in order to appeal to voters and educate local populations on important issues, as Megan Brenan, a senior editor at Gallup News finds after analyzing polls, that the economy ranked the most important issue out of twenty two to voters in the 2024 election. (Brenan, Megan) Although economic tariffs on imports within the US are often presented as tools to protect American citizens and industry, the evidence shows that they lead to greater harm than benefit for the average American by increasing consumer prices as a result of supply chain shocks and trade wars. This paper will specifically look at the way that tariffs are posed to the average voter by politicians opposed to the actual reality that they ensue. Generally, tariffs are taxes on imported goods. When campaigning, politicians often describe tariffs inaccurately without doing the required economic research to understand how they work. Right now in the US, there is a plethora of both reciprocal tariffs and many additional tariffs in the category of transhipment penalties. Additional tariffs have also been threatened quite a bit on countries such as Austria, Canada, China, and many more. (Lowell, Michael et al) In practice tariffs occur when imported goods come into the US from Canada or a tariffed country, the importer needs to pay the tax as early as customs, which Caydn Hillier et al of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago finds does two things. First, it increases revenue for the government that is importing the goods. The second thing that it clearly does is severely increase the cost of imports. Governments often justify economic tariffs by saying that it will increase jobs, reduce dependency, and increase national security. However politicians like Trump frame them as more of a retaliatory tool in speeches like “Revolutionary day.” This perspective is credible because it is a non-opinion based analysis that plainly synthesizes relevant statistics.
Figure 1: President Trump announces reciprocal tariffs at Rose Garden event on April 2nd
Trade Wars
Tariffs harm the economy by triggering trade wars that raise prices and reduce exports. One could argue that Trump’s tariffs initiate a trade war; by definition, a trade war is an economic conflict between countries where they repeatedly impose and escalate tariffs and other trade barriers, such as quotas on each other's goods to protect domestic industries or retaliate against perceived unfair practices, often raising prices of everyday goods for the average American. Authors Kara and Karas, professors of business administration, international trade, and finance in Turkey analyze the effect of trade wars on the US. To clarify, most of the tariffs within the US could be defined as trade wars because they are mostly counterbalancing / retaliatory to other countries' tariffs. Kara and Karas examine how US-China trade wars taking place during the first Trump presidency were largely negative, noting that in the context of trade wars, they led to economic retaliatory measures from that of China, which led to a decrease in US exports. They analyze how tariff induced price increases were passed through to U.S consumers in businesses, similar to the failed economic model of trickle down economics. Kara and Karas end by saying that due to the interconnectedness of international global markets, and because the US so heavily relies on imported goods, trade wars (although appealing to politicians,) they hurt domestic manufacturers more than they protect them. (Kara and Karas.) These consequences of trade wars specifically reflect broader patterns economists observe when tariffs escalate, as tariffs indiscriminately affect the citizens of America and the working class while benefiting the higher ups. Kara and Karas’ analysis found that global trade wars hurt domestic manufacturers. Reasonable economic theory can conclude that when a manufacturer's cost to buy in increases, they must increase the price of the product in order to remain profitable. This occurs, and it indiscriminately affects the working class that cares about prices and costs. The rich, often the lobbyists who support economic tariffs, remain unaffected. The wealth gap compared to varying opinions on the benefits of tariffs further perpetuates the problem, as wealthier individuals can afford the increased costs but also gain money from the domestic industry, whereas working class individuals and small businesses (the bulk of voters in the US) just ultimately earn less and having to lay off workers; this effect is the opposite of the intended outcome of the effects that tariffs are used to campaign with.
Counterargument to Trade wars
A counterargument that might be commonly made in the defense of tariffs and defense of trade wars would likely argue that the trade wars are meant to stop the overreliance that the US has on imported goods. In other words, one would argue that when importing things becomes so much more expensive, it forces people to grow things on their own. For example a coffee shop that imports coffee beans from Brazil. A tariff is placed on imported produce from Brazil of 20%, suddenly coffee beans have become substantially more expensive and coffee producers are almost forced to try to grow coffee domestically. Although slow and expensive at the start, the trade war forces more independence for certain goods that the US often imports.
To respond to this common counterargument, a couple of arguments can be made. First, it’s not guaranteed that tariffs raise domestic production of goods, the short term pain could be permanent. Because tariffs raise costs for consumers and domestic firms, it can lead to less investment power and revenue. This can force businesses out of business for two reasons. First, they can’t afford to import goods they need in order to function. Second, they also can’t afford to produce their own goods. Another counterargument might suggest that there is no need to assume that reliance on imports is bad. When industries become competitive across the world, it increases innovation, efficiency, and generally leads to cheaper prices for the consumer for competitiveness. If there is no competition in markets because of a domestic industry, it can stifle the need to actually innovate. So generally, the benefits do not even outweigh the harms, if not they make them worse in theory.
Supply Chains
Tariffs both empirically, have, and will cause drastic issues with supply chains, ultimately increasing costs for producers which makes the consumer pay in the end. The analysis is done by Dmitry Ivanov, Professor of Supply Chain and Operations Management at Berlin School of Economics and Law, and Alexandre Dolgui, Director of the Centre for Industrial Engineering and Computer Science at the Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne in France. Dolgui’s research focuses on production planning and supply chain optimization. They find in their journal article, “Tariff shocks, ripple effect, and deep uncertainty in supply chains: we are entering a turbulence zone, please fasten your seatbelts,” that supply chain shocks that come as a result of tariffs increase the stocks of raw materials (as less final products are produced,) and logistics costs. To clarify, a supply chain shock occurs when a product is produced across a wide array of countries and many different aspects come from different parts of the world. An example that comes to mind quickly is a lot of electronics. The chip is made in a country like China or Taiwan, and the assembly can happen elsewhere along with other aspects of the creation process. One can infer how tariffs could severely mess up this process and make certain goods much more expensive. Ivanov and Dolgui continue by saying that industries with global supply networks are often “hit hardest” by tariffs and that corrections are hard because regionalizing supply chains requires both supportive regulations and advanced, expensive infrastructure which does not exist in some parts of the supply chain. They even go as far to say that tariffs that affect supply chains can have such an impact that they cause both the supply chain to collapse, and the consumers to have direct increased costs. (Ivanov and Dolgui) The reason that this matters in the scope of the average voting American is because they are almost the most affected by supply chain shocks. For example, most people have an iPhone, a piece of technology with a very long supply chain. The cost of such has increased since Trump’s presidency that implemented tariffs on parts of the Apple supply chain such as countries like China. Because most Americans buy pieces of technology like iPhones, they are indiscriminately paying more because of economic tariffs, thus the benefits do not outweigh the harms once again.
Counterargument to Supply Chains
There are a couple of common counterarguments that come up when one thinks about the supply chain shocks that tariffs cause. First, supply chains are already fragile, and tariffs force them to diversify, ultimately making them more resilient. The problem with this argument however is that it doesn’t account for the increased costs. Even if supply chain issues eventually resolve after 10 years, consumers have still suffered a great deal and it’s not something that can be simply taken back. Another counterargument that might arise would be that supply chains in of themselves are problematic because they deny domestic jobs to workers in the given field. For example, someone in support of this argument might argue that all the steps in the production of iPhones should be done within the US in order to give jobs to the people who have expertise in that field. To argue against this claim, one could say that the job gain from tariffs would be cancelled out by the loss of jobs fueled by lower consumer spending, so in actuality there are no benefits that don’t also come with worse harms. Few if any of these counterarguments (pro-tariffs) are supported by professional economists because they all fail to account for the burden that occurs on everyday Americans. While some industries may benefit, the costs are ultimately borne by consumers through higher prices and disrupted supply chains. One outlier industry has actually found benefit from tariffs, that of domestic steel. The authors of this analysis are Mumtaz Ahmad and Dr. Imtiaz Ahmad, who is a researcher, trade economist and public policy analyst whose research revolves around firm behavior, environment and international trade. They find that even with it being an outlier, steel avoids the import tariff pass through repercussions on consumers. This means that consumers are not impacted by any cost fluctuations due to tariffs on steel specifically. This allows us to conclude that there are outliers. Ahmad and Ahmad also find that over the course of supply chain shocks in the steel production industry specifically, imports into the US decreased, while domestic production increased close to 9%. (Ahmad and Ahmad) This journal article reflects the idea that not every economic agenda is completely negative, tariffs still are capable of yielding some benefits in certain industries, but generally don’t.
Politicians' campaign promises manipulate voters into believing that tariffs are a necessary form of revenge without letting the voter, the central point of democracy, that they will be the one paying the costs. There is no bright line between what politicians can say and cannot say to uninformed voters and it is damaging both the integrity and fairness of elections. This paper serves as a reminder that the average voter is more negatively affected by the implementation of economic tariffs on US imports than they are benefitted because of both trade wars and supply chain shocks.
Works Cited
Ahmad, Imtiaz, and Mumtaz Ahmad. "Tariff pass-through and implications for domestic markets: Evidence from U.S. steel imports." Journal of International Trade and Economic Development, vol. 23, no. 3. Advanced Placement Source, research.ebsco.com/c/uq7g7g/search/details/6joqobyfgn?limiters=FT%3AY%2CFT1%3AY&q=United+states+tariffs. Accessed 19 Dec. 2025.
Brenan, Megan. "Economy Most Important Issue to 2024 Presidential Vote." GALLUP, 9 Oct. 2024, news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-2024-presidential-vote.aspx. Accessed 19 Dec. 2025.
Hillier, Caydn, et al. "What Can We Learn about the Costs and Benefits of Tariffs from a Trade Model?" Chicago Fed Letter, No. 512, Sept. 2025. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, www.chicagofed.org/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2025/512. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.
Hutzler, Alexandra. "Trump rolls out sweeping tariffs as he deems deficits a 'national emergency.'" ABC News, 2 Apr. 2025, abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-liberation-day-arrives-gambles-big-risky-tariff/story?id=120382209. Accessed 19 Dec. 2025. Image
Ivanov, Dmitry, and Alexandre Dolgui. "Tariff Shocks, Ripple Effect, and Deep Uncertainty in Supply Chains: We Are Entering a Turbulence Zone, Please Fasten Your Seatbelts." International Journal of Production Research, vol. 63, no. 19. Advanced Placement Source, research.ebsco.com/c/uq7g7g/search/details/w332xeanqb?limiters=FT1%3AY%2CFT%3AY&q=economic%20tariffs.%20Accessed%2029%20Oct.%202025. Accessed 19 Dec. 2025.
Kara, Ömer Can, and Zeynep Karaş. "Examining the Effects of Trade Wars on the United States." Electronic Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 23, issue. 89. Advanced Placement Source, research.ebsco.com/c/uq7g7g/search/details/py62oip46f?limiters=FT%3AY%2CFT1%3AY&q=tariffs+history+united+states. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.
Lowell, Michael, et al. "Trump 2.0 Tariff Tracker." ReedSmith, 11 Dec. 2025, www.tradecomplianceresourcehub.com/2025/12/11/trump-2-0-tariff-tracker/. Accessed 19 Dec. 2025.
Trump, Donald. "Donald Trump Announces New Tariffs at a Rose Garden Event." 2 Apr. 2025. Factbase, 2 Apr. 2025, rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-speech-economic-tariffs-rose-garden-april-2-2025/. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025. Speech.