That's debatable.
You seem to believe wholesale suppliers won’t absorb any of the increases brought by higher tariffs because they sell to a captive audience of retailers. That is not so. As a former businessman in retail I had several avenues I could pursue to by my products. Not every wholesaler is run the same or has the same expenses and it is the wholesalers overhead which determines his markup to detail sellers.
But if all are importing their goods and paying the same tariff then they are not at a disadvantage if they pass it on to the customer, as their competition is doing. You just explained that taxes are part of the cost of an item. If manufacturers pass the cost of income tax on to the consumer then there is no reason to believe that they won't do the same with other taxes like tariffs.
As for whether domestic mfg can meet foreign mfg on cost to build, that is the idea of the tariffs. Foreign gov often subsidize their manufacturers in order to make their products more attractive in foreign markets. This is called dumping and China has a long history of doing this. Tariffs will level the playing field in this area.
Sure. The point of tariffs is to force the price of imports up so that domestic manufacturers can compete with them. No argument there. And the claim is that tariffs will give domestic manufacturers the incentive to produce here rather than buy there. But looking at it from a manufacturers standpoint, if the only thing making your business profitable is the artificially high prices that a tariff allows then why would you invest billions in building plants that could be rendered unprofitable by the stroke of a presidential pen or an act of Congress?
You seem to lack business knowledge in the sense you believer one wholesaler is the same as another. I explained earlier that expenses incurred by similar businesses can be quite different. If wholesaler A pays $30k monthly in rent while wholesaler B pays $10k or perhaps owns his warehouse that very much impacts his cost of doing business and hereby his markup.
I never even mentioned the savings enjoyed by a business which buys in large volume. The per unit price is very different when units are purchased in quantity and mean 10% or more in what the eventual cost to retailer
It is certainly NOT debatable that taxes in part determine final cost to market of any product.
>> If manufacturers pass the cost of income tax on to the consumer then there is no reason to believe that they won’t do the same with other taxes like tariffs <<
Oh, c’mon. Don’t be so logical. It’s not appreciated by our mercantilist friends around here.
>> if the only thing making your business profitable is the artificially high prices that a tariff allows then why would you invest billions in building plants that could be rendered unprofitable by the stroke of a presidential pen or an act of Congress? <<
Excellent point! Wish I had thought about it!