>tariff is more a tax on imports, paid by consumers ie citizens Only in the pathological case when most or all imports of the particular good is under the tari

>tariff is more a tax on imports, paid by consumers ie citizens Only in the pathological case when most or all imports of the particular good is under the tariffs. Just for sake of example, suppose for a second America had diversified source of steel; four distinct countries each supplying about 25% of imports. Suppose a tariff was laid on the Chinese imports only. Would the prices of other imports move up? A bit, but much, much less than the tariff. Competition does wonders. OTOH, if the only significant source of imports is from China -as is the case right now- well yes, in that case the americans will end up paying. Luckily this also creates positive pressure to diversify sources - which in a longer run will make imports much more competitively priced. Doubly luckily, the money raised on tariffs goes into the governmental budget, which means it gets spent back into the american economy anyway (minus the inefficiency of the government).