There is no end game other than trump knows the people who support him don't understand how tariffs work, so they believe that he is supporting an America first policy.
In other words, virtually everyone will pay more. The only real winner is government which gets a new income stream.
Simple minded solutions for simple minded folks.
Boomers refuse to admit how much the destruction caused by WWII made their lives better.
The problem is they think they have found a simple minded shortcut back to the good ole days.
The reality is you can never go back and trying what looks like a shortcut will only make things even worse.
If you work for one of the many, many American companies that makes stuff solely from inputs from America, which themselves are American all the way down, then sure, might be good (provided you only buy American stuff). If you work for an American company which needs to buy stuff (surely there are very few of those), then, well, not so great.
And tariffs tend to breed retaliatory tariffs.
Realistically the only way heavy protectionism can work (for some value of ‘work’; the quality of goods in such countries tends to be very low due to lack of competition) is if you’re verging on an autarky. This is, well, something that is generally imposed on countries, not something that they opt for themselves because it sounds nice.
https://www.cato.org/blog/how-american-steel-protectionism-h...
"Numerous economic analyses have shown that these measures raise domestic steel prices and harm steel-consuming U.S. manufacturers, including by disadvantaging them against foreign competitors with access to lower-cost (less-tariffed) steel inputs."
I suppose there's something to the argument that steel is a security priority and protecting it is worth some cost, but there is definitely a cost.
His second most beautiful word must be "stupid" --- because it describes his followers who obviously don't understand that "tariff" is really a tax on them.