Brown and Irwin have a wonderful piece documenting the importance of US tariffs as a source of government revenue. The two economists parse Trump’s recently tweet:

“Billions of Dollars are pouring into the coffers of the U.S.A. because of the Tariffs being charged to China, and there is a long way to go. If companies don’t want to pay Tariffs, build in the U.S.A. Otherwise, lets just make our Country richer than ever before!”

Here is what they find

1. The United States gets 98 percent of government revenue from non-tariff sources.

2. Raising revenue through tariffs is more costly than other forms of taxation.

3. Raising revenue from tariffs generates fairness concerns.