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A tariff is a tax on imported goods, collected by the government at the border when the goods enter the country. It is one of the oldest tools of statecraft — and in the United States it is older than almost any other federal function: the Tariff Act of July 4, 1789 was the second law Congress ever passed. For more than a century, customs duties were not a side policy. They were the federal budget.
Two questions cut through almost every tariff debate. The first is what kind of tax it is — a percentage of value, a flat charge per unit, or a quota-linked rate. The second, and the one people most often get wrong, is who pays it — which is settled in the third tab, and is not the exporting country.
Congress holds the constitutional power to tax imports, but over the last century it delegated much of it to the President through specific statutes. Which statute is used decides how durable a tariff is — and whether a court can strike it.