I don’t think most of the public understands how badly tariffs will hurt the economy.
I know nothing about economics. But to my naive understanding, they seem like a good idea. You make money off of imports and encourage manufacturers who have moved out of country to move back and make things here.
People here will need to pay more. We’ll see if companies actually come back, or go elsewhere where the tariffs aren’t in effect. You’d almost need a tariff on every country large enough to make producing products stateside cost effective.
I'm more than willing to pay more if it makes America stronger.
I'm a bottom line guy myself and will buy the cheapest item I can get based only on the quality I'm looking for which may not be the best for all things. I buy scott tissue cuz it's cheap but it works, I buy my clothes at either wal-mart or kohls and stop at the 70% off rack first when at kohls(lots of good deals if you take your time) and when it comes to a bigger purchase like an appliance, tv or car I'm buying what my wallet can afford. I don't think I've ever looked for where a product was made as part of my calculus.
I guess I wasn't really getting the point. I thought what was being said was that
everything will cost more. I tend to buy the cheapest things myself, and I don't generally consider country of manufacture when I buy things either. But I figure the more things that are made here, the better.
Everything that is imported or has components that are imported from the countries you put the tariffs on will cost more. That's the main point of tariffs. You force the companies that are importing their products to raise their prices, which makes the "made in the USA" companies more price competitive.
The point is, in many cases you have that choice already. You can look for products made in the USA and pay more for them, or you can buy the lowest price products that meet your quality standards, which are usually imported. What it sounds like you're saying is you would be willing to pay more only if you are forced to.
A really good example of how Tariffs work, and you can search for this because it's been talked about a lot, is the famous washing machine tariffs from the first Trump administration. Chinese companies were dumping cheap washing machines on the US market and people were buying them. We put a tariff on washing machines imported from China and the average price for washing machines sold in the US went up by 15%. When the Tariffs were removed they lowered their prices back down and the average price sold went back down to where it was before.