The White House Still Can’t Grasp That Americans Pay US Tariffs

Scott Lincicome and Nathan Miller

On the issue of who’s paying the president’s tariffs, the Trump administration has had a rough few weeks. Research keeps confirming what conventional economics has always predicted and what the administration has always denied: Americans pay America’s tariffs. Yet rather than reckon with this unsurprising-yet-inconvenient conclusion, White House officials have responded with misdirection, insults, and even a televised suggestion that some of the professional economists involved be punished.