Leopards Ate My Face

Trump has said that other countries are ripping off the USA which creates the impression that foreign companies are selling goods far higher than they are worth. That means that people who believe Trump likely think that the foreign companies have enough margin to soak up the tariff, I.e. Pay it themselves, in order to keep doing business. Then the ripping off stops and those foreign countries just grumble that their gravy train is over.

In reality, they are not and never were ripping off the USA in the way that is being suggested. Republicans seem to have forgotten that the market forces they used to talk about being so important have put a downward pressure on prices to some extent have prevented price gouging wherever there is competition and no collusion. Even when the goods come from overseas.

Now due to the tariffs, the cost of doing business with the USA went up. So if they want to keep selling products in the USA, they need to cover the cost of the tariff, and the only way to do that and stay in business is to pass the tariff on by increasing their price to the customer. They can still sell that product outside the USA at its original price but they may choose to increase those due to reduced volume sold over all since the USA will likely buy less.

By labelling the surcharge for the tariff they are simply highlighting the reason for the increase in price. As they should. I fear though that posts like this show that even when the reason for increased pricing is made clear, people will still choose their reality and not believe or understand the causes and motivations.