Trade & Tariffs
How trade works and who gains from it, how a tariff travels from the customs code to the shelf, the six statutes that let a president tax imports and the Supreme Court ruling that struck the broadest of them, the regime built in its place, who pays, the deficit and the surplus countries, China, the neighbors and the first use of a 1930 law against Canada, the deals and their pledges, the supply chains that moved, the WTO without a referee, and the services, subsidies, and industrial policy the tariffs do not touch. Written as of October 2026, eight months after the ruling, with about $126 billion of refunds certified to importers, a Section 301 tier of 10% or 12.5% on 60 economies since July, and the China truce extended to January 10, 2027. Where the field argues, from whether a country should protect its industries and who bears a tariff to whether the tariffs have revived manufacturing, who is to blame for the deficit, whether the leverage worked, and whether the state should return as a trader, each side makes its case before the evidence. Opens with a market snapshot from one day's close, and its two worked examples run on October's numbers: one container's landed cost since 2017, and four authorities stacking on one shipment of Chinese steel fasteners.