Donald Trump keeps boasting about the taxes he is imposing on the goods the United States imports from various trading partners. Incredibly, Trump is acting like his high tariffs are a big victory. 

Trump doesn’t seem to understand that the tariffs are taxes we pay. That is why presidents of both parties have worked for more than half a century to have trade deals that reduce tariffs. They wanted to make goods that we buy cheaper, not more expensive.

Trump doesn’t seem to understand this fact. He seems to think that it is a great thing that we are imposing high taxes on imports from longstanding allies like the European Union (EU), Japan, Canada, and Mexico. 

By June his tariffs already amounted to a tax increase of more than $240 billion a year, or $2.4 trillion over a 10-year budget horizon. That comes to $1,900 a year per household or $19,000 over the decade. 

This is already one of the largest tax increases in US history, but Trump is going much further with taxes that could be as high as 30 percent on imports from the EU and Canada. And Trump seems to be just beaming about these massive tax increases.

It is important to be as clear as possible on this issue. Whatever might exist in Trump’s head, we pay the tariffs. There is tons of economic research on this point. In fact, we can just look at import prices since Trump took office. They went up, as in not down. (These prices are before the tariff is paid.)

If exporters aren’t lowering their prices, this means people in the United States are paying Trump’s tariffs. We have yet to see how this burden will be divided between importers, retailers, and consumers, but there is no doubt that people here pay the taxes Trump is imposing on imports from countries around the world, not our trading partners.

The really disturbing aspect to this story is that apparently no one in his administration can explain how tariffs work to Trump. Surely someone like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent knows how tariffs work. He worked in top positions on Wall Street for decades. That doesn’t make someone a genius, but surely he understands tariffs. 

It’s sort of like someone working for 30 years as a plumber. We can assume they know how to fix a toilet. 

I actually know Kevin Hassett, the head of Trump’s National Economic Council. While we may not agree much on policy, I am quite certain that Kevin knows how tariffs work. 

I’m not going to lay any wagers on what Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick knows, but surely there are many people in high level positions in the administration who understand simple economics. But Trump is running such a freak show that everyone is scared to explain to him how tariffs work.

This is like the situation where an 8-year-old kid keeps kicking the soccer ball into his own goal and then does a big loop celebrating each one. Usually a teammate, coach, or parent would try to politely explain to the kid that the point is to get the ball in the other team’s goal. 

Unfortunately, there is no one adult enough to provide Trump with this simple explanation. Instead, they are all cheerleading each of Trump’s own goals. As a result, it looks like he will keep whacking us with ever higher taxes. And then we have to listen to him boast about it.

We all long for the day when the Republicans were the anti-tax party.