entropys

I think it is either highly compressing in the timeline, or overplaying the role of the arrival of Europeans. 

I wonder if it includes the end of captain cook?

No doubt the price of some goods will rise, some will not. It all depends on the relative market power of the buyer and the seller on how much of any tariff will be passed on to the consumer, or absorbed through margins.  Some importers of course will use the tariff as an excuse for even higher price hikes. It all depends on the product and its market position. But you cannot blanket say the users will pay the tariff.

The general 10% tariff is a revenue raiser, the higher tariffs are punitive and generally reciprocal to some form of restriction on US goods or in response to an export subsidy or other incentive. Interestingly, prior to WW1 there was no income tax and federal government raised revenue through tariffs on imported goods.

I spent my entire career in favour of open markets, but I am no longer so sure. Free trade depends on everyone playing by the same rules.  And they do not. All too often it is free trade for me but not for thee. The most open markets are the USA, Australia and  New Zealand (Canada for example has so many tariffs  its government even has a handy tariff finder website for anyone thinking of exporting to it). But even then there are  trade barriers such as quarantine (can be abused)  or subsidies on production that can just be regarded as export subsidies even if that is not their purpose. Everyone else pays lip service to free trade but protects local production through import bans, quotas, tariffs and subsidies. So while I don’t agree with what Trump is doing, there is a part of me that likes seeing the international hypocrites finding out how it feels.