It’s a valid question.  Does the President of the United States understand economics? This morning he tweeted this:

Those words are incredibly misleading.  It’s the American consumer and American businesses who are being hurt by the tariffs.  From Business Insider:

“The Treasury has indeed doubled the amount of tax revenue from import duties since the tariffs were put in place.

According to an analysis of Treasury data by Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, an anti-tariff group, the Treasury collected around $6.2 billion worth of customs duties in October — the first full month after Trump’s tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods went into effect. That number is double the tariff revenue from October 2017.

“But Trump’s celebration doesn’t take into account who is effectively paying that money.

“Chinese exporters do not pay the tariffs. Rather, US importers pay the cost of the duties when the goods come into American ports.”

And guess who pays those additional costs?  You do!

“Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Economics, highlighted this problem in a December note to clients following Trump’s tweet dubbing himself a “Tariff Man.” The economist said some Chinese exporters may be forced to take lower margins to get their product to the US, but also asserted that American consumers would be the biggest losers.

“Tariffs are a tax on consumers, primarily, though some of the hit might be borne by Chinese exporters, forced to accept lower margins. But for the president to boast that the U.S. is ‘taking in billions’ on tariffs makes no sense at all,” Shepherdson wrote. “The ostensible objective of the tariffs is to force China to negotiate a new trading relationship with the US, not to raise money — from U.S. consumers! — for the federal government.”