Believing that tariffs shift costs downstream means disregarding the idea of supply and demand. Companies are not altruistic actors they price goods at the maximum the market will bear. If they could just pass costs on to consumers then it means that they are already leaving profits on the table. There are in fact alternatives to the goods we import on which tariffs are imposed. Even if the alternative is buying fewer items and spending money on completely different things.

At the end of the day tariffs are a bit of plaque in the artery of the multi-national corporations and money flowing out of a country. It's challenging to argue all the negatives of tariffs for the US while ignoring that almost every other country has tariffs that benefit their domestic industries.

* Targeted tariffs and blanket tariffs are different beasts.

* In order for capitalism to undercut the tariffs, the tariffs need to be high enough to offset the costs of setting up the local industry and the higher costs of US labor (which, in turn, are pushed higher by blanket tariffs).

* The tariffs also have to be credibly long-term. If you start building and the tariffs are cancelled, you're screwed. The Trump tariffs don't have this credibility - they're toxic enough that they'll be gone as soon as Trump is, even if it's another Republican in the White House in 2028.