Tariffs is a tax on citizens by a different name. In some cases they are necessary, but in most cases they are stupid and counter productive. I'll tell a simple story to show how stupid they are. Bill Smith, and his small family of three, ran a vegetable farm in Canada. A friend of his, Tom Jones and his family of twelve had an orange grove in a Southern State. They decided to sell to each other at farm gate prices because it would be cheaper than paying wholesale and retail prices. Tom needed $100.00 worth of mixed vegetables per month for his large family, Bill only needed about $20.00 worth of oranges per month for his small family. It worked well until government put a 25% tariff on Tom's purchase, so now he had to pay $125.00 for the same vegetables. Canadian government decided to slap a 25% tariff on Bill's purchase, which now cost $25.00. So the governments just added the tariff money to their coffers, and Bill and Tom's cost went up, the only ones to gain were the respective governments.

Now here is a case when tariffs make sense. John Nobel had a business making hunting knives. He paid $20.00 and hour to his employees who made about ten knives and hour each, meaning his labour cost was about $2.00 per knife. He decided to move his operation to China where he only paid $2.00 labour per hour, which cost .20 cents per knife. Giving him a $1.80 per knife advantage over other knife manufacturers back in the States. If the US government slapped a tariff on John to take away that advantage, it would make sense. Other than that, it was a great way for governments to make money without the stigma of directly taxing their citizens.