by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
I watched this stuff last time, amazed by the lack of inflation. Sure, “This time it’s different,” but those are the four most costly words on Wall Street.
President Trump has now started implementing his promise to impose new or additional tariffs on goods from various countries, starting with China, Canada, and Mexico. Trump already imposed tariffs in 2018 against various countries. Now, once again, the media are all over how prices are going to jump for consumers because tariffs are a “regressive consumption tax,” and how tax receipts from tariffs won’t go up, etc. etc.
Now we’ll look at what tariffs did and didn’t do last time. One, they didn’t trigger inflation, which stayed below the Fed’s target. Two, they more than doubled tax receipts from customs duties. And three, they hit stocks, and the S&P 500 tanked 20% in 2018.