@oliphant I might be misunderstanding something here, but isn't the point of tariffs:
a) to encourage the American businessperson to buy domestic rather than foreign (by making foreign cost as much as domestic via tariffs)
b) to offset the economic damage caused by foreign competition by getting some compensatory payments to the government, which can use them to subsidize domestic industries (making them competitive again) or otherwise fixing the damage (social security for now-unemployed domestic marble makers, idk)
?
Whether China or the American buyer pays the tariffs is not relevant to either of these.
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China: "I want to sell marbles."