Disclaimer: I'm not an economist, don't bother to keep my check book balanced and barely understand my monthly equities report, but I do pay off my credit cards every month, pay all my bills on time, pay my taxes on time, keep healthy balances in my checking and savings accts and kinda watch my equities...
I have read a few simplified articles in business publications about tariffs. If the Trump tariffs work as intended, may be ok....but there is rarely a time in the past when tariffs didn't trigger a negative reaction from the countries upon which the tariffs were imposed. They usually retaliate, and in the current case, swiftly so.
Trade wars can, and did, break out. The worst example was the US imposition of tariffs on a wide variety of imported goods in 1930...it triggered the Great Depression. That's a worst case scenario, and we are nowhere near that.
It'll take some time, a year or so, before we will know whether the tariffs have a positive or negative effect for Americans. My guess is it will help some targeted industries but, overall most Americans will pay more for goods and products because our companies won't absorb the jump in the cost of doing business if they import stuff from countries who impose their own tariffs in response to our tariffs. They won't accept a lower or no profit, so they'll either cut wages, lay people off or raise their prices...