Well, I suppose that's one way to look at it...

I heard an analyst talking about tariffs.  His "take" was that there are some people close to the president who are conducting a complex dance of sorts.  

They do not want to increase taxes on large - to - mid sized corporations; they know that would be a non-starter.  But they also know that they need to increase revenue in some way to fund the government.  So the aim was to increase the tariff rate so that these companies would pay the fee from their outsized profits.

But the companies are greedy, and decided to simply pass that on to the consumer (and in doing so keep their profits ridiculously high).

It would explain all the angst about showing the tariff amount at some retailers.  The administration just wanted the companies to simply suck it up and pay it.

But the companies decided to screw everyone instead.

Like I said, its a perspective that has some merit perhaps.  Its all just so strange.