OP here, I actually agree with you about inflation being different from tariffs (which are indeed taxation), but people do often just conceive of inflation as prices going up, which is why I chimed in about the timing of tariffs (which I probably have more insight about than others on this site, since the company I run is affected by tariffs and we’re just now starting to see competitors increase prices).

That being said, one hypothetical scenario is that tariffs shift demand to domestic manufacturing, causing the price of domestic manufacturing to increase due to supply and demand imbalance. This would result in prices going up without any tariffs being paid. Theoretically. I don’t think that will actually happen in the short term.