Trade Wars: Who do they really serve?

Watching this recent episode of GaryEconomics, by Gary Stevenson, in which he describes how the 1% are effectively working to send the rest of us back to Dickensian Britain so that they can accumulate all our assets and wealth for themselves, got me thinking. What's the idea behind these global trade wars and who wins when ordinary people are effectively paying astronomical amounts for energy, fuel, food, meds etc. I'm no economist but, as I understand it, tariffs are a tax on consumers. So, if the US hikes its tariffs then US citizens will pay more for imports and if other countries reciprocate then their citizens will pay more for US imports. So, basically, everything's a lot more expensive for everyone but where is all this extra money that we're paying out, for basic necessities, actually ending up? As I understand it, as these are gov't tariffs, your money ends up in govt coffers.

So maybe that's a good thing that there's more money in the gov't coffers because then maybe we'll have money to spend on the important stuff, right? Well, I'm not so sure about that. First of all, let's just acknowledge the fact that tariffs are effectively another tax on the poor and then let us consider what our gov't is doing right now. They're cutting healthcare funding and taking £billions from peoples benefits and, as the Office for Budget Responsibility recently revealed the gov't isn't even close to building the extra homes needed to hit its own housing target for England.

There are, however, a few things that our gov'ts have zero hesitation about when it comes to spending money.. boosting the defense budget, forever wars, apartheid, genocide, ecocide, asset stripping poorer nations, supporting Israel, etc.. so, basically, any activity designed to syphon tax payers money into the pockets of major weapons manufacturers, like BAE systems, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Leonardo.

If it wasn't clear before I hope it's clear now that our gov'ts are run by people who serve the interests of a ruthless 1%, not the working class, or even the middle class. They serve their masters, they are generously rewarded for doing so, and they care not a jot whether the rest of us are struggling to put food on the table or keep a roof over our heads. In fact, I suspect, if they could get their way, they'd happily see us all back sleeping in coffin beds again.