Incorrect analogy – More like; 1) You want a pizza made from another region. 2) However, you must sell them some your ingredients before it can be made. 3) They charge a “tariff” to protect the income of their local farmer’s for other ingredients. You’re willing to pay the “tariff” because you like your ingredients better. 4) The pizza maker sells you the final pizza with a standard sales tax but no tariff 5) You paid the higher price and they made money from the tariff.
Trump is charging tariffs to increase the costs from other regions for several reasons. A) To negotiate down tariffs from other regions. B) Lower tariffs mean you pay a lower cost for your special pizza. C) To whittle down our regions deficit. D) and/or To increase local “ingredients” growth at lower cost for you.
The analogy Randall posted was perfect. It’s based on that ridiculous chart the president displayed showing “tariff” rates all over the world allegedly imposed on the US. It was not, in fact, the average import duty charged, or any number even tangentially related to it, like indirect tariffs through subsidy. Instead, it was ( Trade Deficit / Import Value ) This produces a number that has nothing whatsoever to do with tariffs at all. Let’s say NowhereStan exports $1B of gold every year to the US, but gets all their material needs supplied by LocalRepublic, except for $1M a year of US bourbon, imported duty-free.In the real world, the tariff imposed by NowhereStan on the US is 0%. Using Trump Math, it’s 99.9%. This “We just don’t happen make to something the other party wants to buy, so we should punish them for it.” is what the strip is making fun of, not the general concept of tariffs.
You (someone in the US) wants a pizza with ground beef on it. However, the US doesn't have enough cattle to meet demand for ground beef (true fact), so the US imports extra beef to meet demand. You (the person wanting the pizza with ground beef), pay an extra tax because the beef on your pizza was imported. The producer of the beef does not pay the tax. The importer of the beef pays the tax and passes it along the supply chain until you eventually pay for it. Now you're being taxed extra because the US Government (Trump) wants to claim it's being tough on the world while completely failing to understand how economies and tarrifs work. Tarrifs in the end make things more expensive for end users. How much extra is your car, computer, phone, clothing, shoes, medicine and food going to cost you?
Well really, you add stuff by stealing it from other countries and bringing it back to yours. Of course, the UK did quite a lot of that during times of Empire...