I always surprised that people defending these tariffs don't see the conflicting defenses. The default defense comes from Trump who has - since 1980s has pushe

I always surprised that people defending these tariffs don't see the conflicting defenses. The default defense comes from Trump who has - since 1980s has pushed for tariffing other countries to raise government revenue. The idea being - America drives lot of market demand. This seems to ignore basic economic facts. Importers pay tariffs and also that corporates are all about profit maximization. Companies might eat some of the tariffs in short term but they will always reduce costs in long term. That means jacking up prices slowly, finding ways to circumvent tariffs, using low cost - maybe even harmful but unbanned substitutes in products to name a few. Even the domestic company has a reason to hike up prices just below the price of imported goods. And also, because there is less competition domestic company might even reduce R&D because they can continue to rake in profits from local markets. The second defense is around domestic companies. I don't think anyone will disagree that each country needs to protect its most crucial domestic industries. But in those cases tariffs ae a precision tool, not a hammer. Tariffing everything doesn't make sense except it goes back to original defense - the point is to raise revenue.