Are Tariffs Patriotic or a Self-Inflicted Wound?

Politicians call tariffs "economic patriotism." This episode calls them what they really are: a tax on your family disguised as punishment for someone else.Using history, economics, and a few uncomfortable examples, we examine the claim that tariffs protect American workers. The hosts argue instead that trade wars are self-inflicted wounds. They functionally perform to raise prices on everything from groceries to electronics while quietly transferring wealth from consumers to politically connected industries. From Adam Smith to Milton Friedman, economists across centuries have reached the same conclusion: tariffs don't make a country richer. They just make its citizens pay more.If tariffs are so beneficial, why do consumers always end up footing the bill? And why do politicians keep selling the same idea generation after generation? This episode challenges one of the most popular economic myths in American politics and asks whether "protecting" the economy is really just another word for making everything more expensive.