Top WH adviser Kudlow admits US consumers pay tariffs

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
20 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House’s top economic adviser acknowledged Sunday that U.S. consumers and businesses pay the tariffs that the Trump administration has imposed on billions of dollars of Chinese goods, even as President Trump himself insisted in a tweet, incorrectly, that China pays.

“Yes, I don’t disagree with that,” said Larry Kudlow, the head of the president’s National Economic Council, when Chris Wallace, host of “Fox News Sunday,” asked him, “It’s U.S. businesses and U.S. consumers who pay, correct?”

Kudlow added, “Both sides will pay,” but he stipulated that China “will suffer (economic) losses” from reduced exports to the U.S., not from paying the tariffs.

Kudlow’s admission contradicts many of Trump’s comments and tweets to the effect that Chinese companies pay the tariffs in what amounts, in the president’s view, to a massive transfer of wealth to the United States from China. Yet almost no economist has agreed with Trump’s view and fact-checkers routinely brand Trump’s assertion false and point out that American importers of goods from China pay the tariffs.

Read more: https://apnews.com/b8b68b10a50d4b509c31b7e9428b0f11

[underpants]

1. Second rebuttal post I've made on this. NO he didn't at all.

Video at link
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212093419

[Honeycombe8]

2. Yep. Tariffs are taxes.

Kudlow struggled with that, not wanting to admit it.

When we raise tariffs on imports from China, costs increase for companies. They'll pass that cost along to the consumer, to the extent possible.

China will retaliate and raise tariffs on our exports to China, which those companies will pass to consumers, too, I guess?

So the governments get more revenue from taxes, mainly from the citizens. And trade between the two countries will probably decrease, as companies look to buy those products elsewhere.

Is that right? Another way for government to get taxes from mainly middle America, after it passed a huge tax cut bill for mainly the wealthy? Increased costs in Chinese products probably won't phase the ultra-wealthy, if they even notice or buy those products.

[keithbvadu2]

3. $Billions in new Trump taxes called tariffs.

$Billions in new Trump taxes called tariffs.

[BigmanPigman]

4. I saw him say this on TV today and did a double-take.

I think this is the first tRump official who said that Americans will have to pay the cost that will be dumped on us with trickle down debt.