Explain Like I'm Five

Tariffs aren't charged to the country or corporation the product came from. They are charged to the importer. It's literally a fee at customs to release the item into the country. Some companies take care of this for you if you're buying personally from overseas. Some do not and it is more transparent

Let's use alcohol as an example because I like scotch and some stores in the UK do and some don't. The ones that take care of customs for me would just show me a price of 68.75£ along with a warning that the exchange rate may cause a minor shift in price. The ones that do not would show a price of 55£ along with a warning about the exchange rate and that I need to deal with customs. Customs sends me a letter when the bottles arrive in the country saying I need to pay 17.26 US Dollars (about 13.75 in British money) to clear customs.

So that's why Trump's Tariffs are actually a sales tax on Americans. But why are countries going to retaliate?

That's because industry owners in affected countries are going to complain to their government about our government making their products more expensive in our country. It's okay if you need to read that a couple times, I did when I was learning about international economics. This is going to affect the trade balance between the two countries if they don't retaliate. It will make American goods cheaper and thus give them an advantage on the world stage because they always have a protected market at home to profit from.

This is especially disastrous when the countries are dissimilar in size. Like the US and UK. Take two producers of Soybeans. In the US they have twice the available production capacity (arable fields) and a protected market six times the size of the UK by population. So if the UK producer can only sell at market rate to 60 million people and the American producer can sell at market rate to 330 million people, the American producer can make more money before we even talk about international markets. So the American company has more money than the UK company to operate internationally.

Between the two countries specifically this means that without retaliatory tariffs the American company could even buyout or bankrupt the British company and replace it in British stores, without hiring British workers. That's an extremely important point in an economic system based on selling your labor. And why the workers will also demand retaliation.

I could keep going, there's a lot that goes into this but at the end of the day everyone's economy gets hurt. And the biggest thing to know is that there are two giant weak points in a trade war. Being a manufacturing country that exports a lot of stuff, (Mexico), and being a food importer, (USA). You'll notice I didn't mention China. That's because they import food mostly from Africa and export goods to Russia, Europe, and the rest of Asia. Our tariffs are not going to meaningfully hurt them. As far as Mexico, you may be thinking we'll just tariff their manufactured goods, but not their food. Well, let me introduce you to Exit Tariffs. They can make their food more expensive only in the US as a retaliation. Is that a bit self harming? Yeah, but what's worse? Less income or Less food?

And that's why Trump can't possibly win his Trade War.

The dumbest thing Democrats did was not referring to tariffs as an Import Tax. A tax you pay to import the goods.

Tarrifs are paid by the importer and cost passed on to the consumer. The idea is to make it comparatively cheaper to buy local and reduce dependency on China. The problem with it is that other countries will impose tarrifs on US exports as well so a lot of people will lose their jobs and prices go up but it will increase local manufacturing jobs on the other hand.

Generally speaking people are better off when there are no tarrifs

Yes it will absolutely raise virtually all consumer prices, across the board. Some more than others.

The tariffs will be paid by the importing companies, and then it will cause the prices of those goods to rise.

The hope is that this will incentivize and result in more development of the American manufacturing sector, resulting in medium and long term gains.

Short term there will definitely be a cost, paid by us.

Tariffs are not meant to be a stimulator of your own economy, they are a more so a test of it's endurance. Let me explain.

Globalism is a double edged sword. We collectively came to the agreement to put it on every country themselves to figure out what they're good at and how they can survive on the global market. It got us as far as we are today. A country can specialize creating a product from the most available resources within it's borders be it natural resources or skilled/unskilled labor. Having access to the global market means way higher profits than just selling to your own people.

The problem with globalism is that it is completely unregulated by an overseeing entity, and since recent times have shown that hostile territorial takeovers are generally frowned upon, every country is essentially stuck with the resources it already got. This means some countries have lucked out and have more resources available than others and are therefore a bigger economic power. Generally the more complex the product your country is exporting is, the higher the state of development your country has. A lot of countries struggle to build a complex industries to meet global demands (see Korea with stem cell reasearch in the 90s and 2000s).

So if territorial takeovers are a no no, then economical takeovers are the peaceful alternative. The problem is that China has the most amount of manpower in the world, it isn't exactly a small country either and therefore has a lot of natural resources. If China was a culturally open and peacefull democracy, this wouldn't be an issue, but as we all know - it isn't. If China decides to take over a market - they can. Additionally the have always been 'rules for thee, not for me', China buys up other countries property and land but doesn't allow others to do the same for it.

Yes, in the end, everybody profits from the efficiency of globalism and open trade but the scales are not evenly tipped for all. This leaves most countries vulnerable to economic attacks from bigger global players. Tariffs are in a way a bargaining chip in the global market. The idea behind it is to say 'I'll take my business else where' in the hope that being a big enough importer that jumps ship, would be enough to damage the tariffed countries economy. It's essentially an economic attack from the bottom up.

An additional reason for US tariffs being bad is that it will weaken their relationship with China, and will turn China even more towards Russia, which is presumably the whole purpose given Trumps ties to Putin. All in all the next 4 years are going to be difficult for everybody.