Breaking Down Trump’s Tariff Retreat, the American VAT Tax, and Consumer Sticker Shock

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American VAT tax. My wife gets a kick out of the VAT tax. Again, it’s a great way that she uses to persuade me when we’re in Europe and she’s shopping. All the money I’m going to get back when I get to the airport. Yeah, if you are leaving the country or American, go to other places, they Europeans will refund you your value at a tax, your VAT tax at the airport. If you spend it on items over a certain price. Anyway,

Kevin O’Leary actually pointed out this yesterday. Again, it makes a lot of sense. He basically said where we’re going to get when it comes to tariffs was, again, what the original first couple paragraphs of what Trump talked about on Liberation Day, 10 % tariffs across the board. Essentially, an American VAT tax. An American VAT tax.

And I think he’s on to something. You see, the thing that our fearless leaders understand, whether they be in Washington, D.C. or whether they be in your state capital, is that they will fight tooth and nail to get, you know, taxes applied. And sometimes I actually promise that, oh, yeah, we’re putting these taxes in effect or these tolls to pay for this road. And then, you know, then when the road is paid for, it’s going to go away.

Yeah, they do that all the time. Remember which stadiums? Oh, I have a special tax at hotels and all of this stuff. And yeah, it’s gonna help pay for the stadium. Those taxes ever go away? No, no, it’s at that. It’s like boiling, you know, slow boiling a frog in water, you slowly but surely turn up the heat frog doesn’t realize it and gets cooked. Yeah, that’s, that’s basically we the people. We are in a perpetual state in this country.

of paying taxes and our political leadership knows, both Republicans and Democrats know that we’ll just get used to it. We’ll just get used to paying this American VAT tax. We’re not going to see it. Not going to see it. Prices are going to go up. You’re going to pay for them. You’re going to be told, going to be told that these are the Chinese going to pay for it. The corporations are going to pay for it. No, you are going to pay for it.

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And I gave this example last week, week before, back when we were kids, I remember when we kids, you go to a gas station and at the gas station would show you the price of gasoline and it would also show you the taxes, line item, the various different state and federal local taxes that went into the gasoline that you’re buying. That was all gone. They don’t do that now. It’s all included. They don’t want you to see. They don’t want you to see. Another example.

I can brought me back in time. Yeah, I’m showing my age. We used to be able to get a keg of Genesee beer. Not the greatest stuff in the world. And upstate New York Genesee beer for $10 a keg. I’m dating myself. My sophomore year of college New York State put this new tax on alcohol. And I think that went up to like 35 to $40.

keg. Again, you didn’t see that tax. You didn’t see it, but it was there. You were paying it. It’s the same thing with cigarettes and a myriad of different things that we’re paying taxes on that you’re not going to see. And in essence, that’s what this this tariff situation looks like it’s going to become. Again, I if this was by design, OK, if this was Trump’s

6D, 5D chess to get, you know, much of the country all bent out of shape over these tariffs to, you know, pull back. Well, and I, you know, so he can raise taxes on us without raising taxes on us. I guess it’s kind of genius, but I don’t think that that’s the case. The Wall Street Journal today had an editorial talking about the tariff rollback. And he said, say rarely has an economic policy been repudiated as soundly and as quickly.

as President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs and by Trump’s own hand. Talking about the scaling back his punitive tariffs on China. It’s another, again, big retreat in less than a week. And again, it’s great. It’s great that we’re not being whacked over the head to an even greater degree, but we’re still that frog being boiled in water. Watchdogon wallstreet.com.