These are the sort of things the poor and middle class voted for. To make the rich, richer. And then turn around and complain that rich are getting richer and they are getting poorer.
We have already observed that the opposite does not hold - in 2017 we slashed corporate income tax by 14% across the board, roughly the same as the tariffs but with far more surface area, and yet prices did not react and the benefits were not passed along to the consumer.
All we _know_ right now is that this is going to negatively impact economic growth by hitting corporations, the same way slashing corporate income tax positively impacted economic growth by benefitting corporations.
Fixed prices are a bet on TACO and hoping to avoid the orange rage: see what happens when you blame price increases on tariffs.
Lots and lots of bribes have been paid. This is yet another.
> Fixed prices are a bet on TACO
Having been part of some of these conversations it's mostly a bet that democrats will win back control sometime in the next decade and do a full reversal. When that happens, you don't want to be caught out with less market share because you adjusted your prices to maintain your bottom line. Same logic as startups burning VC cash on offering free compute, 80% discounts on tokens, etc. to grab market share.
If you're in an elastic market, your priority is not to maximize profit, it's to make the market inelastic.
What they're trying to decide is (a) do they eat the cost of tariffs in margin or (b) do they raise prices?
That's a decision that doesn't need to be made until they burn through warehoused inventory, but for high-volume businesses (read: retail) it's measured in months at most.
Once that hits, either (a) or (b) will be chosen, and neither is great for equities markets / the economy.
Moreover, there's no "hiding this under the rug" once publicly traded companies begin to report quarterly financial results AFTER burning through their pre-tariff inventory. They can't not explain to their shareholders why they've taken a hit to profitability.
Best possible case is retail prices rise, once, by the amount of tariffs, and that's that.
But a 15%+ price hike is going to be an uncomfortable narrative for those in power who insist tariffs won't raise prices... so I'm not betting that conversation goes logically.*
* See the reaction part of Amazon got when they "accidentally" line-itemed tariff charges as evidence on how dangerous the administration sees transparency around tariff costs
As someone selling on eBay from notUSA, the cost increases won’t just be the tariff, but some additional fixed and variable fee for the privilege of determining the tariff and potential loss of the cheapest shipping options.
Friction begets friction!