Google Gemini was used to research this piece, and the content is too big for 300 words. This Essay was posted on 7/23/2025.
There is much to complain about Donald Trump’s tariff policy with its yoyo implementation where the only winners are insider traders that coincidentally sell and buy back their portfolios at just the right time. Tariffs are a fee paid by the importer, but they might as well be a sales tax, because the consumer will most likely pay back the importer with a higher sales price. In fact, retailers are increasing prices to more than offset the tariffs. If the importer pays a $100 tariff fee, the retailer may charge $120 extra to the consumer. The only possible benefit that tariffs provide is the illusion that your taxes are lower. But will tariffs bring jobs back to the US?
Trump promises more jobs in the US from tariffs, but history suggests that his promise is empty. In the first half of the 19th Century, tariffs produced up to 90% of Federal revenues, but the Civil War generated the need for more cash, so a temporary income tax was created. When the 20th Century began, the US Federal government replaced tariffs with an income tax. Tariffs couldn’t handle emergency spending the size of the Civil War, and tariffs were not providing enough cash to support a growing nation.
The world market has changed too. In 1900 the world population was 1.6 billion people, and 66% were in extreme poverty. Since then, the world population has grown to 8.2 billion, and, thanks to international efforts to promote peace, extreme poverty has dropped to 10%. Taking population and poverty into consideration, the world marketplace is over 10 times larger now than in 1900. This growth could have an effect on tariffs.
In 1900, companies served a much smaller market than the large international companies today. Now, companies have choices they didn’t have in 1900. When faced with high tariffs, they can switch a portion of their business to more forgiving markets, instead of building large plants in the US where the long-term future of tariffs might be fuzzy at best.
With the options available to the large US companies that dominate the US market, Trump’s promise of more jobs for workers might not come to fruition, and the tariff fees we pay might just be wasted money.
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