How much will Trump’s new tariff schemes cost Americans?

In December 2018, Donald Trump took to social media and explained to tens of millions of people that he was a Tariff Man. The former president also declared he wanted other countries to pay for the privilege of plundering America. 

“When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so. It will always be the best way to max out our economic power. We are right now taking in $billions,” Trump wrote. 

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Clearly, the former president didn’t understand how tariffs worked when he typed out his statement, something several commenters on his post pointed out. Tariffs are a lot more complex than how the former president portrayed them. 

Trump may or may not have known that he wasn’t telling the full truth in his social media message but the facts are tariffs are not paid by foreign companies but rather those who import the goods. The costs are passed down to consumers.  

“A tariff is just a form of a tax,” explained Tax Foundation senior economist Erica York to CNN in March 2024. “It’s the US purchaser, the importer of those goods, that makes the physical payment to the US government.”

However, this fact didn’t stop the former president from imposing a number of tariffs on the products of countries ranging from Canada and China to Russia and Japan. These tariffs ended up costing consumers in the country billions. 

Estimates from the American Action Forum estimated that as of May 2022, the former president’s tariffs had an economic impact on over $350 billion in imports and exports, and increased costs to consumers by $51 billion annually. 

Needless to say, Trump’s tariffs cost Americans a lot of money and the former president is at it again. Trump is promising all kinds of new tariffs that will have serious impacts on people’s finances. Let’s look at what Trump is proposing. 

CNN reported that Trump has repeatedly floated the idea that he would impose a 10% blanket tax on all goods coming into the United States if reelected in 2024. Trump has also proposed a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports. 

The former president’s tough-on-foreigners tariff plan might be enough to excite his base but all of that extra cost is going to be paid by American consumers, and it isn’t going to be cheap according to the Center for American Progress.

The left-leaning Washington-based think tank reported that Trump’s new plan would equal an additional tax of $90 per person per year on food—as well as an increase of $120 on oil, $220 on automobiles, $70 on clothes, and $80 on electronics.

The total cost of Trump’s tariff plan for the typical American household would amount to about $1500 and it “would drive up the price of goods while failing to significantly boost U.S. manufacturing and jobs,” explained Brendan Duke and Ryan Mulholland. 

Duke and Mulholland broke down the analysis from the Center for American Progress in an article for the think tank and explained how Trump’s proposed blanket 10% tariff plan would affect the country’s consumers on a larger scale. 

Americans are set to import an estimated $3.2 trillion in goods in 2025. So if Trump were to win the election and impose his tariff plan, the country’s consumers would be looking at a tax increase on goods of roughly $300 billion. 

Duke and Mulholland also explained that a 10% tariff “would make U.S. exporters less competitive with foreign competitors since they often rely on imports as inputs into their U.S.-based production.” As their costs rose, so would their prices. 

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All things considered, the former president may be a Tariff Man but his tariff plan seems to be a bad one for Americans. However, only time will tell if Trump’s plans for the future ever become a reality for the country.