WASHINGTON Attention Walmart Shoppers: That $18.99 flannel shirt in stores today could soon cost $36.99.

That $69 single-serving Keurig coffee maker could jump to $135. And that $489 PlayStation 5? How does $954 sound?

Such would be the hyperinflation caused by Donald Trump s goal to eliminate the income tax and replace it with tariffs, which, in addition to causing a global recession, would also radically shift the tax burden in this country away from the richest upper-middle class and onto the lower-middle class and poor.

Yeah, sure, why not, Trump said in his Friday interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, when asked if he was serious about his proposal. The Republican presidential nominee then went on to praise the 1890s, as he has done repeatedly of late, as Americans golden age because tariffs were so high.

We will not allow the enemy to come in and take our jobs and take our factories and take our workers and take our families unless they pay a big price, and the big price is tariffs, he told Rogan.

Trump, throughout his nine years running for and serving as president, has pushed ideas that made little sense and were based on his inability or unwillingness to understand basic concepts. In the case of tariffs, he continues to believe that other countries pay tariffs that the United States imposes.

These tariffs are paid for by the abusing country, NOT THE AMERICAN CONSUMER, the coup-attempting former president wrote, inaccurately, in a social media post Thursday.

Economists across the political spectrum describe his view of tariffs as absurd. They point out that American tariffs are paid by American importers at ports of entry as customs duties, which are then passed along as higher prices to consumers.

I view this as so self-evidently stupid that it doesnt require much discussion, Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the conservative think tank American Action Forum, said about Trumps plan.

He said that the country will import about $38 trillion in goods over the next 10 years while the income tax is expected to bring in about the same amount. Thats essentially a hundred percent tariff rate to match that up, he said.

And because retailers have a fairly low profit margin on imported goods they sell, a 100% tariff would translate into about a 95% increase in prices for everything from clothing to household items to electronics.