While there’s a lot being written about the Supreme Court decisions on tariffs, I wanted to take a moment to step back and clearly lay out my thoughts on them.
Many people think of tariffs as purely disruptive, but throughout history, they’ve been a primary source of government revenue.
In an ideal world, you wouldn’t have tariffs — each country would make and trade the things they are capable of producing efficiently. But as the world becomes increasingly fragmented, we have to look beyond pure economic efficiency and consider the necessity of self-sufficiency.
For that reason, tariffs are anything but simple. To understand who truly benefits and who pays the price, you have to look at the full system.