The Steep Cost of Tariffs Is Coming Into Focus: Ernie Tedeschi

Some six months after the Trump administration announced its first tariffs on goods from China, Canada and Mexico, it’s starting to feel that policy may be starting to stabilize now that higher rates for most of the rest of America’s trading partners went into effect Aug. 7.

Although it’s still too early to confidently predict what the economic impacts of tariffs will be, some are becoming clearer. For example, the new levies have boosted government revenue by about $65 billion but overall prices on goods are accelerating. And what about the original motivation for implementing tariffs, which was to ...