All the turmoil surrounding President Trump's tariff plans seem to have no basis in reality, but yet the market seems to be manipulated by folks who are so uninformed that we see the (mock) volatility.
But let's take a break here and dig into what tariffs are and their role in our history.
"Tariffs are among the oldest of taxes for the simple reason that they are easy to collect. Just send in the tax collectors and don’t let the goods being transported move until the duty has been paid. Being one of the earliest forms of taxation, it is not surprising that tariffs produced one of the earliest forms of tax evasion: smuggling.
"In America’s colonial period, the east coast of the United States, with its many rivers and inlets that the small ships of those days could utilize, lent itself to smuggling, and the American colonists evaded British tariffs on a grand scale."
Oh, and lest we forget, Nancy Pelosi was trying to warn us about our trade deficit with China almost twenty years ago:
