Who has claimed that tariffs are “uniformly bad”? Certainly no one here.
Try again.
Meanwhile, I will reiterate what I wrote:
(1) None of the MAGAs I talked with had ever heard of Smoot-Hawley.
(2) All but one totally believed this administration’s claims that tariffs are paid by the source-country.
As to your other questions, regardless of to whom they were directed:
Tariffs are NOT necessarily “uniformly bad for the consumers in the country levying the tariffs” when that government has, for example, decided that the welfare of those consumers is increased through tariffs.
An example is Japan levying high tariffs on agricultural goods produced by its own farmers. The Japanese suffered from severe food shortages and even starvation to various degrees in WWII, due to embargos and losses of farm workers to war mobilization. So it makes sense for them as an island nation to want their farmers to thrive with protected markets. They have reasoned that it is better for Japan’s consumers to pay higher food prices than to risk starvation during another national crisis.
It is certainly a reasonable question and one that is covered in any first year macro-economics textbook or even high school civics (at least it was in my day.) So many countries have tariffs on U.S. goods for many of the same reasons why the U.S. has had tariffs on incoming international goods since the first tariff act in 1789. Tariffs are used to protect or equalize or favor particular sectors of an economy and to raise income for the government. They can also be used for various geopolitical strategies. (Big topic for another time.)
Ever wonder why you rarely see a European-manufactured light truck in the USA? It goes back to 1964 when the USA imposed a tariff on light trucks against European countries which were imposing a tariff
on American chicken. Those European countries eventually dropped the chicken tax but the USA never ended that 25% tariff on light trucks. (That big surcharge is still called by people in the truck business, “the Chicken Tax.”) I can imagine that European light track manufacturers don’t think that that one-sided tax for over half a century is fair at all.)
Yeah, I would bet that most of us have dealt with tariffs and import/export fees. (And those who have also lived abroad have probably experienced such costs from both USA and non-USA perspectives.)
I remember my publishing operation shipping to people in South Africa back in the 1980’s and professors there complaining that they paid an extra 40% above and beyond the difficult exchange rate to buy the U.S. dollars to send to me because their government was trying to address their currency crisis. They were trying to prevent an economic collapse in that country.
Many years ago Congress dropped the tariffs for Americans buying from abroad under the de minimis rule. (I can remember when it used to be on under-$200 orders and in more recent years got raised to $800. This was NOT done to help foreign countries but because American consumers/taxpayers wanted it! This was especially popular with American tourists shopping abroad who wanted to ship their purchases home.)
I’ve heard that that de minimis exemption is ending due to bipartisan support in Congress. Yes, that is how democracy works. It certainly isn’t China’s fault or any other country’s fault. It is a USA decision.
And an equally valid follow-up would be to ask if nearly 250 years of all sorts of tariffs on imported goods in USA is "reasonably characterized as free trade?” My answer would be that it depends upon your definition of “free trade.” And like many other terms in economics it exists on a spectrum. Personally, I like to see a lot of free trade but am fine with carefully applied tariffs on particular goods and services to address a particular issue. Of course, that is why countries, including the USA, have employee trade representatives who help work out such things. (They don’t simply blather and bully, a tactic which rarely works out well for anybody.)
Of course, this administration apparently doesn’t believe in free trade because they are also pursuing the ridiculous goal [or so they say] of equalizing the balance-of-trade between the USA and all other countries. Tell me, why should a huge and rich country like the USA be restricted to buying from LESOTHO (or Peru, or Cambodia, or whatever) ONLY as much as they buy from us? A tiny country where consumers have very little disposable income can NOT be expected to balance trade with the USA. (Yet, Trump’s silly “tariff chart” doesn’t really deal with tariffs at all. He admits that it is some kind of crazy “equalizing formula” for balance of trade. Meanwhile, he leaves out the HUGE imbalance where the USA enjoys a big surplus of EXPORTS of services. Why are those not part of the big picture?)
Meanwhile, higher tariffs on coffee won’t encourage coffee growing in Mississippi. It will only make coffee more expensive.
In any case, history shows us that the more free trade we have (even with the complications of tariffs and other obstacles, like differing quality control requirements), the more EVERYBODY prospers. Trump pretends that Americans are “getting ripped off” by China—but a basic rule of economics is that buyer and seller don’t complete a transaction UNLESS they both consider themself better off after that transaction is completed. Nobody forces Americans to buy cell phones from Asia. They WISH to buy them because America values FREEDOM. (And as an engineering faculty colleague told me long ago, “If Americans had to buy their smartphones made in America, without the skills of Chinese engineers who design the production lines, they would cost over $80,000 each.” Believe it or not, that is not pure hyperbole.)
And international trade produces more market efficiency and economies of scale. That’s one of the reasons why my generation has enjoyed much more prosperity than my grandfather’s generation.
My grandfather was born in 1877, so his life until about 1900 was difficult due to the terrible economic conditions which existed for MOST Americans in that era. Yet Trump somehow believes it was America’s “richest” years. I guess he didn’t go to class and learn about the Panic of 1873 that produced a very long economic calamity. Indeed, my grandfather joked about how “The Depression” was originally a euphemism for telling his PARENT’s generation that the 1930’s were just a mild “depression” rather than the full scale PANIC they suffered under in the late 1800’s.
Of course, for Trump, the late 1800’s WOULD sound like a great era because for robber barons and the super-rich upper-classes, it was a wonderful time.
I hope this helps to clear up your questions on these topics.