Transcription
The uh, tariffs, as you know, will start a week earlier than the reciprocal, which is going to be on a couple of weeks earlier. Reciprocal starts. Reciprocal tariffs start on April 2nd. No room left for Mexico or for Canada. No, the tariffs uh, you know, they're all set. President Trump's favorite economic tool is the Tariff, and tariffs are taxes on Imports, on products that are brought into the United States from abroad.
Uh, on his first day in office, uh, the president, president announced that he'd be putting a 25% charge on goods from Mexico and Canada. Like other taxes, uh, tariffs raise money for the government. They can also be used to protect domestic industries from foreign competition, and they can also be used to punish foreign countries if we think they've been behaving badly, having uh, predatory Trade Practices. Mainstream economists generally don't like the widespread use of ter- tariffs. Um, they say tariffs push up the cost to Consumers and to say factories that use imported machinery, and they can also lead to inefficiency because consumers will have an incentive to buy the products that aren't hit with the Tariff, rather than looking for the best product or the the most uh, the most value for their money.
President Trump likes to claim that foreign countries pay the tariffs, but that's not exactly right. Um, tariffs are paid by the companies in the US that buy the products and bring them here, the importers, uh, and then they can decide or they can try to pass on the costs to Consumers. So ordinary Americans end up footing the bill.