The hidden tax. Tariffs cause a hidden tax that never really goes away. I hope that Americans are tired of being told fairy tales about why everything costs more. Our elected officials point fingers. Corporations blame supply chains. Commentators blame inflation. The truth is much simpler and infuriating: tariffs are a tax on ordinary people, and the pain does not stop when the policy ends. It sticks. It lingers. It rarely delivers what we were promised. This is the mess we are in now because of the tariffs imposed by the current administration.

Tariffs are sold as strength, as toughness – a way to punish governments and to bring back manufacturing jobs. That pitch works on conservatives who want control, moderates who want fairness, progressives who want domestic industry, and politicians trying to get elected. It is a message built to unite. The policy itself does the opposite. It drains the wallets of the very people that it claims to protect. Here is how it actually works. The minute a tariff hits, companies raise prices. Not after debate. Not after study. Immediately. Families feel it right away in every aisle, in every store. Workers feel it again when businesses, squeezed by higher costs, freeze hiring or cut hours. Tariffs don’t hit China. They hit the checkout line.

When tariffs disappear? Prices don’t magically fall. They don’t even drift down. They stay right where the companies left them. Economists call this “price stickiness,” but most Americans call it what it is: once prices go up, they never come back down to where they were before. Why? Because tariffs don’t just raise prices- they scramble supply chains. Companies switch suppliers, reroute shipping, build new compliance systems, and bake those costs into their business. Those costs don’t vanish when the tariff does. Even when courts strike tariffs down, companies sit around waiting to see if they get a refund. No one lowers prices while they are waiting for a government check that may never come. Inflation only makes it worse. Higher wages, higher shipping, higher energy prices, higher interest rates – all of it stacks on top of the tariff shock. Tariffs were one spark in a much bigger fire, and removing the spark doesn’t put out the blaze.

Let's stop pretending the story ends with “cost pressures.” There’s another force at work that everyone recognizes, no matter their politics: profit-seeking. Call it greed, call it business – the label doesn’t matter. What matters is the behavior. When a tariff raises prices, companies pass the cost on to consumers. When tariffs disappear, companies keep the higher prices because they can. If competitors aren’t lowering prices, why should they? The market rewards holding the line.

This leads to an even bigger truth: tariffs rarely bring back manufacturing because it is far cheaper to pass the cost on to consumers than to build manufacturing plants in the United States. Building facilities takes years. Training workers takes years. Creating a domestic supply chain takes decades. Passing the costs of the tariffs to the consumer takes an afternoon. Even with tariffs, producing overseas is often cheaper than producing here. Also, because tariffs can be imposed or removed instantly, companies don’t trust them enough to make long-term investments that would have to occur to bring back manufacturing.

Here is the part that needs to be said plainly: many of the public claims made about tariffs were not true. Not spin. Not exaggerated. Not political framing. They were factually incorrect. In other words, they were lying to you. Those inaccuracies that some people would call lies shaped public understanding of a policy that directly raised prices for millions of Americans. Here are some examples: “China will pay the tariffs.” Americans paid the tariffs through higher prices, not China. “Tariffs will bring back manufacturing”. They haven’t. Companies mostly shifted production to low-cost countries. “We’re getting billions from China.” The money came from U.S. importers, not China. “Tariffs don’t raise prices for Americans.” They did, across appliances, electronics, clothing, and construction materials. “Farmers are doing Great.” They weren’t. Retaliatory tariffs hit them so hard that a multi-billion-dollar bailout was required.

Tariffs didn’t just hit consumers. They hit farmers like a hammer. Hard. Fast. And in ways that everyone paying attention could see coming. Farmers were not just collateral damage; they were the first and biggest target of the retaliation. When the U.S. slapped tariffs on imports, other countries hit back, were it hurt: American agriculture. Here is what it meant in real life: “Farmers lost their biggest customers overnight.” China, the largest buyer of U.S. soybeans, stopped buying. Not slowed. Stopped. “Prices for farm goods crashed”.  Soybeans, pork, dairy, and corn all took hits. Farmers don’t set prices; global markets do. “A massive bailout had to be created.” Tens of billions in emergency funds weren’t a bonus. They were a life raft. “Even with the bailouts, many farms still closed.” Once foreign buyers switch suppliers, they don’t switch back. “Tariffs raised the cost of farming itself.”  Steel, fertilizer, machinery, all got more expensive. Farmers get squeezed from both sides: lower prices for what they sell and higher prices for what they buy.  The bottom line is simple: Tariffs hit farmers harder than almost everyone else. They lost markets, lost income, lost stability, and in many cases lost their farms. This is not partisan. It’s what happened.

Tariffs are not just a function of economic policy; they are also a political symbol. A way to signal toughness in a world where economic complexity doesn’t fit neatly into some rally speech. Tariffs have been presented to the American people as proof of strength, sovereignty, and national pride. They were presented to the American people as a simple solution to a very complex problem, and that presentation mattered more than the economics behind it. Tariffs became a symbol because they told a story people wanted to believe: that America was being taken advantage of, that other countries were winning, and that a single decisive action could flip the script. The narrative was emotional, but the economics behind it were shaky at best. Tariffs were visible. Unlike tax credits or regulatory change, tariffs could be announced with a signature and a headline. They created the appearance of action, immediate, forceful, and unilateral. They fit neatly into a flawed worldview that sees global trade as a zero-sum contest, where toughness alone can reshape supply chains. But symbols don’t pay the grocery bill. Symbols don’t lower the cost of appliances or cars. Symbols don’t rebuild factories. And symbols don’t protect families from the higher prices that tariffs impose. The symbol's value overshadowed the economic reality, and the American people are left holding the bill.

If we want a serious conversation about trade instead of symbols to get votes, we have to start with the truth Americans live with every day: tariffs hit immediately, the benefits rarely materialize, and the gap between the story and the reality is paid for at the checkout counter. Until policymakers confront that gap honestly and stop lying to the people, the distance between the political promises and the economic outcomes will only grow wider. I would think that our current Administration would know all of this. Are they or are they not business experts? The lies have to stop, and we, the voters, have to start demanding the truth.