The Trump administration has announced it plans to raise taxes on Americans in the form of tariffs.
MISES INSTITUTE
As with inflation and any other redistributive policy, the principal effect on the economy of a tariff is nothing other than a redirection of resources from more to less productive activities. It is the attempt of the central planner to replace the economic judgment of millions of consumers (in his own country and around the world) with a preconceived idea of how he would like those consumers to act -- whether for or against their own best interests. -- CL2.0
As quoted in the Mises.org article:
Thus the new tariff law has resulted in this: The protected industry now makes a high profit to which it is not justly entitled. The average French citizen has been duped out of five francs by his government, and must therefore do without the article or service he would have bought with it. One segment of the economy has profited at the expense of many others. True enough, because of the artificial price increases, new jobs have been created in the protected industry. But what is not seen is the fact that the extra money now spent for iron must necessarily result in reduced spending for other products and services, and thus fewer jobs in those industries. And worst of all, the people have been encouraged to think that robbery is moral if it is legal.
-- Frédéric Bastiat
