Explain Like I'm Five

What does neurodiverse mean in this context

When you import something from another country, it needs to go through things like customs, etc. You have to fill out all the paperwork about what it is and where it's going (if you're using/selling it in the US or just middlemanning it somewhere else).

Part of that paperwork includes tariffs, a tax on the good you are importing. So, the importer has to pay the government that money in order for the product to legally come in to the country. The importer pays that cost, so the local purchaser pays that cost, so the consumer pays that cost. And each one of those (and likely many other) steps probably will add on a little extra for the trouble.

The hope is that encourages local production; even if it costs more to produce locally, when you factor in the cost of the tariffs to import, it might make sense to invest the cost to avoid the tariffs.

The troubles are:

1. you can't often make a fully operational supply chain domestically in 4 years
2. the US doesn't have some of those raw resources, like minerals or regional food sources
3. good or bad, places like China can pay professional factory workers way less than minimum US wage, which, in case this is news to anyone, is already far below a livable wage

Since the comment I replied to was deleted I willreply here.

The big thing to realize is trump and his cult seem to think the exporter (country of origin) pays the tariff to the importing country’s government. Where it actually is paid by the person who imports the item passing the tariff to their government.

If you are in the US and buy a 24% tariffed item from another country you are responsible to pay your government that 24%.

Now imagine you manufacture cars here in the states, but of you 1000 need components to build that car 825 of them are imported. You have to pay for each of those taxes tariffs, increasing the cost of something manufactured here.

If US companies are making cars and selling them at 20,000 each and another country starts importing their cars for sale at 8000 a piece, the government can put a tariff on that country’s cars to bring the price equal to or more than the 20,000 the US companies sell for so the US companies don’t go out of business by being undercut. The problem is that the other country can retaliate with equal or more tariffs if we import products there.

Tariffs are designed to be used prudently and only in extreme cases which would damage the countries business by radically different pricing of similar products.

The ham fisted broad tariffs that Trump is doing don’t fit any tariff model or make any sense.

It's an import tax on imported goods.

I'm the CEO of the Orange Company, an American company. I sell oranges for $1. It's the winter and Florida has no oranges for me to sell. So I call up a business in South America and have them send me oranges, $1 million of oranges.

The Orange Company pays them $1 million. When the oranges arrive in the US, the US Federal government charges me a 10% tariff on my imported oranges - $100k. The Orange Company pays the US government a 10% tariff, or $100k, for importing $1 million of oranges.

I then sell my oranges to American consumers. Because my cost of goods went up, I can't sell for $1 anymore. So I pass on the 10% increase in orange cost to my customers by selling oranges for $1.10.

That's what a tariff is, how it works, and how it is effectively a sales tax.