In a letter to House Democrats urging their support for his re-election, President Joe Biden slammed Donald Trump's recent call for a 10-percent across-the-board tariff on imported products, complaining that it will boost household costs on the average American by $2,500 a year.
He's onto something. Tariffs, which are levies imposed on foreign products generally as a means to prop up domestic manufacturers, are just a fancy term for tax hikes. They limit consumer choices as other countries stop shipping goods to our markets. They boost inflation. For instance, Trump's steel tariffs protected the U.S. steel industry, but raised the price on every item that relies upon steel.
