➡ Peggy Hall from thehealthyamerican.org discusses the misunderstanding of tariffs by Trump’s press secretary, Caroline Levitt. She explains that contrary to Levitt’s statements, tariffs are not a tax on foreign countries but are paid by importers, often leading to increased costs for consumers. Hall emphasizes that tariffs act as a tax hike, not a tax cut, for the American public and criticizes this method of revenue generation as it bypasses congressional approval.
➡ Tariffs are not a tax cut but a tax hike for American consumers, as they end up paying the increased cost of importing products from countries with U.S. tariffs. This is illustrated by the example of auto parts crossing the border multiple times, with tariffs applied each time, significantly increasing the final cost. The video questions the objective of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., considering the high energy consumption and potential environmental impact. It also suggests that there are other ways to incentivize domestic manufacturing, such as tax breaks and favorable loans, rather than imposing tariffs.
➡ This text discusses the complexities of tariffs, including their purpose, effects, and alternatives. It also explores the concepts of free trade and free enterprise, and how they impact a country’s prosperity. The author plans to delve into these topics in a series of videos, using various sources including economists Adam Smith and Milton Friedman. The author also encourages support for their research and content creation.

Hey friends, Peggy Hall back with you from the healthyamerican.org. Apparently, Caroline Levitt, Trump’s press secretary, doesn’t have a clue when it comes to tariffs. I’m not sure if you saw the clip from her press briefing a couple of days ago. I’m filming today. It’s actually Thursday, March 13th, 2025. And a couple of days ago, she was being asked some questions about tariffs, about tax hikes. And I’m going to play that clip for you in just a moment. Before I do that, I want to ask you a couple of questions. What do you know about tariffs? Who is charged the tariff? How are they paid? Who are they paid to? How do presidents have authority to issue tariffs? What has been the consequences? What have been the consequences of tariffs over the years? In fact, starting on Monday, I’m going to be doing an entire deep dive, going over lots of questions.

It’s actually an area of interest for me. So we’re going to be taking a look at that in great detail. Today, we’re going to be looking at the comments of Caroline Levitt. I’ll give a brief overview answering a couple of those questions. And more importantly, was Caroline Levitt’s demeanor. And I thought that was quite interesting. Now I’m a YouTuber. I have this channel and I present information ideally to educate, inspire, encourage, exhort, entertain a little bit, perhaps, and help make sense of what’s going on in our world. Ideally, I call it reading between the lies.

But I’m not a presidential press secretary that needs to have a certain level of decorum. So I found her response. Well, I’ll tell you what I think about that in just a moment. First, let me tell you what I think about noblegoldinvestments.com. This is a longtime sponsor of the show. And I’m grateful for my sponsors, which is how I’m able to bring you this information at no charge to you. So the message from noblegold, which is here at noblegoldinvestments.com, is a market update. Gold is up 46% in a year, doubling the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 gains, which have been up and down lately, as you probably know.

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So you want to get your questions answered by the experts. You may have heard me talk about this in the past, and this is your reminder to give them a call at 877-646-5347. You’ll speak to someone in the United States. Get all your questions answered over at noblegoldinvestments.com. All right, friends. Let’s take a listen to Caroline Levitt’s press conference. I call them press concerts. This was actually a press briefing that was held a couple of days ago. I’m going to play this all the way through. And I would like you also to take a look at her facial gestures, her facial expression.

It looks like she is feeling a little heated and a little anxious. So let’s listen in. If we could just step back for a second. When President Trump last addressed the BRT when he was on the campaign trail, his big push was on tax cuts. He’s going there today as he’s proposing tax hikes in the form of tariffs. And I’m curious for why he’s prioritizing that over the tax cuts. He’s actually not implementing tax hikes. Tariffs are a tax hike on foreign countries that, again, have been ripping us off. Tariffs are a tax cut for the American people.

And the president is a staunch advocate of tax cuts. As you know, he campaigned on no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, no taxes on Social Security benefits. He is committed to all three of those things. And he expects Congress to pass them later this year. I’m sorry, have you ever paid a tariff? Because I have. They don’t get charged on foreign companies. They get charged on the importers. And ultimately, when we have fair and balanced trade, which the American people have not seen in decades, as I said at the beginning, revenues will stay here, wages will go up, and our country will be made wealthy again.

And I think it’s insulting that you’re trying to test my knowledge of economics and the decisions that this president has made. I’m now regret giving a question to the Associated Press. Mary, go ahead. If we could just step back for a second. When President Trump last addressed the BRT when he was on the campaign trail, his big push was on tax cuts. He’s going there today as he’s proposing tax hikes in the form of tariffs. And I’m curious why he’s prioritizing that over the tax cuts. He’s actually not implementing tax hikes. Tariffs are a tax hike on foreign countries that again have been ripping us off.

Tariffs are a tax cut for the American people. And the president is a staunch advocate of tax cuts. As you know, he campaigned on no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, no taxes on Social Security benefits. He is committed to all three of those things, and he expects Congress to pass them later this year. I’m sorry, have you ever paid a tariff? Because I have. They don’t get charged on foreign companies. They get charged on the importers. Ultimately, when we have fair and balanced trade, which the American people have not seen in decades, as I said at the beginning, revenues will stay here, wages will go up, and our country will be made wealthy again.

I think it’s insulting that you’re trying to test my knowledge of economics and the decisions that this president has made. I’m now regret giving a question to the Associated Press. Mary, go ahead. All right. Let me break this down a little bit. We’re going to talk about the tough truth about tariffs. This is very much an overview and a very brief introduction. And starting next week, I’m going to be doing a deep dive and I’m going to share with you some of the questions that I’m going to pose and the information that I’m going to give you.

But for now, many people are confused, like Caroline Lovett, and they’re confused about what tariffs are, how they work, and most importantly, what history has shown us about the impact of tariffs. So, press secretary Caroline Lovett is confused about tariffs. There’s no doubt about it, as you just saw. In this press briefing, which was held on March 11th, a couple days ago, she said tariffs are tax hikes on foreign countries. She went on to say that tariffs are a tax cut for the American people. Oopsie daisy. Caroline Lovett got that exactly wrong.

It’s the exact opposite. Tariffs are not a tax hike on foreign countries. The foreign country or the foreign company or the foreign producer pays exactly zero when it comes to tariffs. The importer of the product is the one who pays the tariff. And I think that’s where a lot of people have been confused. It would be great if you could just slap a charge on that country or that company and they were to pay it. I don’t know how great it would be. We wouldn’t have access to their products. And I believe in a free market.

However, this gets even worse because it’s the importer who pays the tariff. Not the foreign country, not the foreign company, not the foreign producer, not the exporter. That’s a fact. That means that you as the importer or the consumer, if that is passed along to you, you are paying the 10%, the 20%, the 30%, the 40%, the 50%, even the 60% that Trump said he wants to inflict on China, on certain goods in China. So you’re paying 60% more in some cases of the usual price that others are paying if you are the importer.

And most likely the company who is importing is going to pass some or all of that cost onto you. So contrary to Lovett’s ignorant statement, history has shown that tariffs act as a type of tax hike on the American consumer, not a tax cut. And what is even more troubling to me, as we talk about the tough truth about tariffs, is that taxes can only be imposed upon the American public through Congress, through the Senate, through legislature, through legislation. And this is a backdoor way of basically getting more revenue to the government out of your pocket.

So it’s the exact opposite of a tax cut. It is a tax hike. And it’s even worse because it’s a tax hike done without congressional approval. Because it was going through the Congress, you know that the Congress and the senators would all be hearing from you and me telling them that we are opposed to increasing taxes. In fact, if you want to bring manufacturing back to the United States, why not cut the rate of taxes that manufacturing companies pay? I mean, that would be something right off the bat. I’m going to do a deep dive on this in the coming days.

But just to let you know, that tariffs are not a tax cut for the American consumer. They are a tax hike on the American consumer. And the foreign companies do not pay for these tariffs. So the American consumer inevitably foots the bill for the increased cost involved in importing a product from a country that has a U.S. tariff slapped on it. Let me give you an example. And then I’m going to pose some questions. And these will be the things that we’re going to be looking at in great detail over some upcoming videos.

So here’s an example I came across. The Canadian and U.S. auto industries have been intertwined for 60 years. What happens if they put a 25% tariff on all auto parts and products coming from Canada and Mexico? Some auto parts cross the border eight times before they’re put into the final vehicle. For example, some basic steel might be shipped from Mexico to the United States. All right. There’s a tariff going to be put on by some of these auto part manufacturers who are importing steel from Mexico. Then it’s molded into a carburetor part, for example.

And then that piece is shipped to Canada, actually, where the carburetor itself is produced. And then that carburetor is shipped back to Mexico to be installed during the final assembly before that car is shipped to the United States and sold in the United States. The tariffs would apply every single time that part crosses the border. So you can see that that 25%, which is quite modest looking at what Trump is proposing, would be compounded at each step. The impact on the cost of the consumer would be astounding. Now, in this video, I’m not going to break down the perceived objective, which is bringing manufacturing back to the United States.

I will say, just on a summary view, that I don’t know why that’s an objective. What is so great about bringing manufacturing back to the United States? That ship may have sailed in some respects. It takes a long time and a lot of money to get a factory up and running. Further, if we are being told that there is a burden on our electrical grid right now and that it’s difficult to produce energy, why in the non-spinning world would we want to have a greater impact on our electricity and our energy by creating these manufacturing facilities that use up a tremendous amount of energy? Now, I’m not a person that is sounding the alarms on climate change and all of that, but for those who do have that concern about the environmental impact in our backyard, so to speak, I don’t want a manufacturing plant going up down the street.

Do you want that pollution? I don’t. Think about the stated objective that I think a lot of people don’t even question. We need to bring manufacturing back to the United States. Why? I am sincerely asking that question. Where are you going to find the workers working for, I don’t know, $13, $14, $18 an hour doing this kind of work, which is not that great. Avork, have you worked in a manufacturing plant? I did what was called light manufacturing, where I had little plastic pieces that I had to assemble into a little kit of other plastic pieces.

I did that as a temporary job. Did you ever do that where you went to an employment agency? I don’t even know if they still exist. This was back in my college years in between college semesters, and I would just apply at this agency, and they would send me on little day jobs like day laborer jobs. And I did this light assembly in what would be called a light manufacturing plant. And it’s not something that I really wanted to do again. I think there are so many other opportunities that the government could be promoting, rather than just bringing back manufacturing.

It makes me ask the question, who is that going to benefit? Is that going to benefit the big billionaires that are going to somehow get tax breaks for investing in manufacturing plants that may or may not ever come online? Remember back in the Obama era, with Solara and all of the solar panels, all of these billions, I don’t know how many millions or billions of dollars, it was a lot of money back at the time, of your money and mine, tax dollars that were given to the so-called green companies that probably certain individuals invested in got their money, and by got their money, I mean, lined their pockets with their sticky, you know, the money stuck to their sticky fingers, oops, and then guess what? Those companies went bankrupt.

So I don’t want to see all of that happening. Further, if you want to bring back manufacturing, there are other ways of doing it. You could have incentives, for example, Trump gave the example that he was upset that he had to purchase thousands of windows. I don’t know why he’s purchasing thousands of windows, but he had to purchase all of these windows from China. And he was upset that he couldn’t purchase them from North Carolina. And he was wondering why they’re not manufacturing windows in North Carolina any longer. Well, it’s called a free market and free enterprise and free trade.

We’ll do a deep dive on that as well in upcoming videos. But the fact is, if the state of North Carolina wanted to incentivize window production in North Carolina, they could give tax breaks. They could give favorable loans. They could identify areas where a manufacturing plant could be made. There could be reduced taxes on new manufacturers coming online for a certain number of years. I’m not saying that these are all viable, but I’m giving you an example to get out of the false dichotomy of only two choices. We have to slap on tariffs and bring manufacturing back to the United States.

Well, let’s look at both of those. There are a lot of other choices in between time. And I, for one, don’t even know if manufacturing, bringing it back to the United States, is the right thing to do. We actually have a trade surplus. We are the world’s largest exporter of services. So if we’re just looking at goods, then yes, we are importing more than we’re exporting. And some would say that’s a good thing. Why should we be using up all of our scarce resources? And as I say, the environmental impacts and the energy impacts, let somebody else make this stuff.

And if we want to buy it, let the people buy it. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about going deeper. But what I want to talk about is finished my commentary on Caroline Levitt. And when her glaring error was pointed out, as you saw by the AP reporter, I thought he did so cordially. He didn’t attack her. He just said, have you ever paid a tariff? Because I have. Instead of Levitt saying, I’m sorry, I misspoke, or thank you for that correction. I was thinking about something else. Let me clarify what I meant.

That would be reasonable and professional. Instead, she aggressively, condescendingly, in my view, and punitively retorted, I think it’s insulting that you were trying to test my knowledge of economics and the decisions this president has made. I now regret giving a question to the Associated Press. I mean, that’s so punitive. And dare I say, just juvenile. I don’t think it’s very becoming of someone at that level in government. I don’t think it’s classy at all. But it turns out that tariffs are an area of interest for me, a special interest, as a matter of fact.

And not just because I studied international trade and economics when I was getting my master’s degree in international policy studies. I’m actually fascinated by other countries and cultures. I’m curious about their political systems and their economic policies. And I want to figure out why certain countries like the United States have been able to promote the greatest amount of prosperity, individual freedom, and well-being with the greatest possibility for peace and stability. I would like to see that for people in every country. So studying political systems and economics actually is something that is of great interest to me.

And I have a background in that. So I know it’s a tall order to try to call for peace and well-being and prosperity across the world here. But I do think it is a goal that is worth pursuing. So that leads me to creating this series that I’m going to call The Tough Truth About Tariffs. And in this series, we’re going to look at exactly what are tariffs. I’m looking at the questions that I jotted down here. Who pays the tariff? I covered that briefly here. How are tariffs paid? When are they paid? And to whom? And that’s very simple.

They’re paid at the border when the product comes in. And they’re paid, it actually ends up going to the Treasury Department. So it’s another tax. It’s another source of revenue that you and I and the importer has to pay, not the country. I think that right there is like an ah-ha for many people, because I would be in favor of China having to pay. For example, I don’t know if I would be in favor of that. I’d have to think that through because I’m in favor of free trade and free enterprise. So we’ll talk about who has the authority to impose tariffs.

Can the president just do this without any congressional oversight? What is the stated purpose, goal, or intended objective of the tariffs? And do the tariffs actually achieve that stated goal? And are there other ways that that goal can be achieved? How long do tariffs last? What historically has been the result of tariffs? Who really benefits from tariffs? When was the last time the US imposed a tariff? And who did so? And on what countries? And for what products? We’re going to take a look at that. Why would a country impose a tariff? What do economists think about tariffs? Are tariffs bad for the economy? Are there other ways to achieve these objectives other than through a tariff? What are some real life examples of tariffs? And most importantly, what are the tariffs that Trump wants to impose? I mentioned the 60% on certain goods coming in from China.

Right now, there is a 14.5% tariff on lumber coming in from Canada, which means any like a home builder that needs to get lumber or just a woodworker who is making handmade furniture has to pay more than anyone else in another country. And Trump wants to add on another percentage that’s going to bring it up to almost 40%. Think of what that’s going to do to the cost of buying a new home, or just having some repairs done to your home, or if you needed some cabinets made or anything else that you wanted to do with lumber.

This is a real life example. So when we talk about tariffs, we also need to talk about trade deficits and trade surpluses. In other words, trade balance, the balance of trade. So we’ll talk about what is a trade deficit? What is a trade surplus? What sectors are measured in terms of a trade deficit or surplus? Why do these trade deficits even matter? Are trade deficits good or bad? You might be interested to hear my take on that. What is fair and balanced trade, like Caroline Levitt was referring to? And does that really matter to have it fair and balanced? Is it even realistic? Is it something that’s achievable? Finally, we’re going to need to look at the concept of free trade, or the free enterprise system.

What is free trade? What is free enterprise? And historically, which has resulted in greater prosperity for the people in a given country, free trade or tariffs? All right. That’s a lot that we’re going to be covering in my series. And I want to give you an overview. We’ll also do some deep dives into which markets the US is leading in exports. We actually are a leader, a world leader in exports in certain sectors. And you don’t hear about that on the news. Why is that? We want to hear about, I will also tell you about which countries we export to, which countries are our largest trading partners.

We’ll look at where the US is importing goods from, and why that is. Now, I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I’m going to share with you some of my sources and references. They’re very broad. First of all, I’m drawing from philosopher Adam Smith. Let me know if you had to study Adam Smith. When you were in school, he’s known as the father of modern economics. And he has a very important book called The Wealth of Nations. This book was actually published in 1776. Yes. And it is still as relevant today as it was back then.

This book is considered a fundamental work in classical economics. And it’s the first of its kind to really present or describe a comprehensive system of political economy. In other words, how do nations build wealth? And then I’ve also extensively studied the work of Milton Friedman. Let me know if you have seen his videos. He’s a libertarian who believes as much as I do in the maximum possible freedom for the individual. He’s now deceased, but he was a prominent figure really like in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. You may not have been around back then, but there was a trade war with Japan.

And he spoke about that at length and how the United States actually benefited from importing Japanese goods, because then the Japanese would use the dollars to invest back into the United States. So trade is not done in isolation. He has provided a lot of very thoughtful cordial presentations and debates. And if you see any of those debates, you can contrast them with what goes on now, what passes for debates on some of these news channels. It’s actually really refreshing to go back and watch to see how polite and professional and cordial these individuals were, even sharing differences of opinion.

So he has talked a lot about free trade, government welfare, and everything else in between. Other sources that I’ve consulted include the Bureau of Industry and Security related to export controls, the US Customs and Border Protection for trade enforcement and border security. And that is where you are paying those tariffs when you are importing something into the country. The International Trade Administration is all about promoting US exports. And then there’s the US Census Bureau, which actually does have and publishes trade statistics. I’ve also gathered data from this organization called the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

It’s amazing. We’re going to do a deep dive into that. You’re going to see exactly which sectors the United States is leading in. And I think you’re going to be surprised. It’s not as dire as the headlines make it out to be. I guess I’m the only one that’s doing the deep digging because nobody on Fox News or NBC or anywhere else actually I think is going to be doing the level of investigation that I’m doing. So I hope that you’re going to appreciate all of the hours and time and effort that I’m putting into this.

A way of supporting me is to subscribe to my sub stack, which is peggyhall.substack.com. You can get all of the articles for free, but if you would like to support my work, you can do a paid subscription. Or if you like, you can send a donation. And I have a snail mail address for you in the description box. And you can also just go to thehealthyamerican.org slash donate. Many of you are asking me how you can support the hours of research that I do and the time that it takes for me to create these videos.

I don’t have a staff that does the research that does the production, unlike some of those others that you’ll see on the high wire that has script writers and all of that. It is me doing the deep digging and I’m so grateful to have you on board. All right. I’m kind of wrapping up for now. Normally on Fridays, I like to do something a little more lighthearted, but I think I will leave that video for you tomorrow, Saturday as a bonus video. I like to just kind of lighten the atmosphere a little bit as we close out the week.

All right. Thank you everybody for being on board. Let me know in a comment what you think about Terrace, what you would like me to cover, and then join me as we’ll do this deep dive over several videos on my series, The Tough Truth About Terrace. I want to thank my husband, Pastor David, for coming up with that name. We’ve had a lot of really interesting discussions about this, and that is what has informed me and actually inspired me to do more deep digging to help others understand what can be sort of a confusing and complex issue.

All right, signing off everybody. Thanks for being on board, and I’ll see you in a bonus video tomorrow. [tr:trw].

See more of The Healthy American Peggy Hall on their Public Channel and the MPN The Healthy American Peggy Hall channel.