Tariffs, Trade Wars, and Your Wallet

You have probably heard the word tariff more in the last two years than in the rest of your life combined.

It shows up in headlines about grocery prices, factory jobs, inflation, and political fights that seem to contradict themselves from one week to the next. Meanwhile, your groceries cost more, your car payment went up, and almost nobody explains why in plain English.

That is where the confusion begins.

Tariffs, Trade Wars, and Your Wallet cuts through the noise and explains what tariffs actually are, who really pays them, and why the public debate around them is so often misleading.

In clear, readable language, Levi Kavan breaks down how tariff policy works in the real world and what it means for ordinary Americans. This book explains:

• What a tariff is and how it works as a hidden tax on American households
• The history of American tariff policy, from the Founding era to Smoot-Hawley to the collapse of the free-trade consensus
• Who actually bears the cost, backed by research from the Federal Reserve, the Tax Foundation, and the Yale Budget Lab
• The April 2025 "Liberation Day" tariffs and the IEEPA legal theory behind them
• The Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling in Learning Resources v. Trump that struck down the IEEPA tariffs
• The major tariff authorities, including Sections 232, 301, 122, and 338, and why the legal basis matters
• The China question, including national security concerns, unfair competition, and the real trade-offs involved
• How tariffs affect workers, wages, prices, and the factory jobs that were promised but often never arrived
• Why lower-income households are hit hardest
• What the Section 122 expiration on July 23, 2026 could mean for the midterms and for your wallet

This is not a textbook, and it is not a partisan talking-points book. It does not tell you what to believe. It gives you the context, facts, and economic logic you need to understand what is happening to your money and why.

So the next time someone on television, online, or on a debate stage starts talking about tariffs, you will be in a much better position to tell whether they are explaining the issue honestly or selling you a story.

Part of the Power and Politics, Explained series, clear and accessible guides to the ideas, systems, and conflicts shaping the modern world.