Trump will raise tariff rates on Chinese goods in response to trade war retaliation

You seem to equate “planned economies” with the subject of economics and those who have a reasonable grasp of economics.

Although many, probably most, economists are Leftist Keynesian, that doesn’t negate or exclude the reality of Free Market Economics, which is the successful use of the laws of economics, nor does it make tariffs anything more than what it is - a palliative, not a curative, measure, fooling a lot of people and makes them feel good because tariffs appear to be doing something about the underlying problems but in actuality don’t.

Many try to make the free market more mysterious than it already is - unknown and unknowable. Those people don’t really know what they are talking about IMO. The free market is simply the voluntary cooperation between buyers and sellers in the openly competitive market free from government interference. The free market creates wealth, not just for the direct participants but via John Adam’s “invisible hand” creates wealth in the aggregate.

Secondly, U.S. tariffs is a tax on goods sold in the U.S. How is that not U.S. consumers not paying for U.S. tariffs?

Your post illustrates my point.

"Economics" is not the economy. "Economics" is the study of the economy, with models, theories, and predictions that seek to model the economy. As with any other intellectual pursuit, it's not for the intellectually lazy...IE, anyone who doesn't understand the limitations of economics.

That includes "those who have a 'reasonable' grasp of economics."

Economics, like any model, is only as good as the quality of the model...and the application. It can be very good, or very bad. It's not the end of understanding the economy, but merely the start.

How is it, you ask, that US consumers are not paying for the tariffs? They must be, you say, because that's what the model says...regardless of the real world results.

Except that there are assumptions behind the model, sometimes valid, sometimes not. Do you have any idea what they are, in this case?

I'll give you a hint..."Static Analysis."

The way tariffs work is the government forces raised prices on targeted incoming goods. It is a form of wage and price control but in this case forcing higher prices.

You might say, “Well that’s not a tax on the consumer”, but effectively it is. The payment of the tariff-hiked money comes out of the consumer’s pocket and goes nowhere but into the government’s pocket.

So then you might say, “Well they don’t have to buy those goods.” But now government is forcing artificially high prices on the market place on goods the consumer ordinarily wants. So now, the consumer is forced to either pay more for what he wants or choose an often lower quality item he would ordinarily not get.

Tariffs force consumers to choose a lower quality:price item allowing lower quality:price products (usually American special-interest products bound by government policies of anti-business regulations, unions, and taxes) to succeed. The consumer loses and special interests win.

Generally, current demand is the level of the current expected standard of living. As always and in this case in particular, government interference in the marketplace (in this case tariffs) lowers the standard of living.

In the meantime, tariffs do nothing to solve the underlying root causes of inferior U.S. products because those underlying problems (anti-business regulations, unions, and taxes) are caused by the same government that is now putting another layer of interference into the marketplace.

And what makes it worse is many think these government measures are solving our long-term root causes. But again as usual, the government will put off what is REALLY needed to fix the root causes which would be GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE MARKETPLACE AND QUIT INTERFERING WITH FREE ENTERPRISE.

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