Is that you never know where the ingredients came from. The same is true with parts in manufacturing, or raw materials for anything you buy.

I remember the first new car I ever bought in 1982 - I was looking at a Toyota Celica GT, but I let family members pressure me into buying “an American made car”; so I bought a Mustang GT instead. I was in fact very happy with the car - it was the first year Ford offered the 5.0 liter High Output V8 in them, and I special ordered it in monochrome silver with all black trim, no chrome.

But my point here is that my “American made car” was assembled in Canada of parts manufactured in several countries, including Mexico. If I had bought the Toyota, it would have been assembled in the United States - I believe Kentucky was the assembly location for Toyota. So which car was actually “American made”?

Having spent years working in the supply chain industry, there are very few things which do not include raw materials, parts, or ingredients purchased from a different country these days. We are very inter-dependent on each other as countries, which is not a bad thing in all honesty. The problem lies in Trump and people like him preying on the ignorance and prejudice of the undereducated masses in this country, and other groups doing the same in other countries.

Tariffs do not work; their only function is protectionism and taxation. They were designed to provide taxes to governments - taxes which are paid by the importer, not the country exporting the goods. This is what I do for a living - my office deals with tariffs on imported goods every day, and the tariffs are levied on the importer. Which is the company buying the goods. When Trump enacted his tariffs during his first term, my employer (the largest independently owned retail chain in the US) absorbed as much of the cost as we were able in order to keep from having to raise our prices. This allowed us to stay competitive in the marketplace. However, you can only absorb so much before it becomes unprofitable - which meant that we did in fact have to eventually pass through the increased costs to the consumer. My point being that contrary to the Orange Asshole’s comments, tariffs are paid by the consumer, and only an idiot doesn’t realize that they are only going to push prices up. Tariffs are essentially just another sales tax.

The second thing tariffs were designed to do was to protect domestic industries - but they do that by forcing prices upward! They protect domestic industries by raising the cost of imported goods, which does not benefit the consumer. It eliminates competition, which basically allows a company to stay in business without improving their processes to become more competitive. We are propping up a company that should no longer be in business. In business, the basic tenet is improve or die.

Not to mention the fact that all this will simply drive reciprocal tariffs, which will hurt consumers even more. No one wins in a trade war - no one that is except the rich assholes like Trump. Tariffs hurt the middle and lower classes disproportionately, and the rich just get richer.

Tariffs are like the old saying…….. an eye for an eye and pretty soon everyone is blind.