Late Monday, after the president spent the day tweeting about how tariffs are awesome and carry zero unintended consequences, the Trump administration said it would hit China with tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods and that it was prepared to tax all imports. The move was a sharp escalation of the trade war that the White House seems to believe, against all evidence to the contrary, it is totally winning—a take shared by virtually no one outside of the administration. For one thing, scores of U.S. businesses have been badly hurt in the process, unable to absorb cost increases and forced to lay off employees and contemplate closing their doors for good, despite POTUS’s claim that the effects have been “almost unnoticeable.” For another, experts say the president is exaggerating the benefits of his trade “policies.” But perhaps most pressing is the fact that while the administration thinks China is this close to backing down and agreeing to its demands, Beijing has absolutely no intention of doing so.

“Washington’s view seems to be that tariffs and threats of more tariffs will soften up the Chinese and make them more amenable to negotiations,” Eswar Prasad, a Cornell economist, told The New York Times. “The evidence that, in response to U.S. bullying tactics, China just stiffens its spine and strikes back with proportionate tariffs against U.S. imports has had no discernible effect on the Trump administration’s take-no-prisoners approach to this rapidly escalating trade war.” Case in point: China has already said it has no choice but to retaliate against the latest round of tariffs, a position the administration probably should have seen coming, given the fact that Beijing has responded to every round of punitive measures in kind.

But Donald Trump and his cronies are not known for being quick on the uptake. So in the meantime, Americans will get to pay for the fact that the executive branch is kind of dense. “These tariffs are going to be paid for by the working families who drive our economy,” Jonathan Gold, a spokesman for a business group fighting the tariffs, told the Times. “Tariffs are taxes, plain and simple. By choosing to unilaterally raise taxes on Americans, the cost of running a farm, factory, or business will grow. In many cases, these costs will be passed on to American families.” Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Technology Association, said in a statement: “Today’s retaliatory tariffs are not an effective trade policy and may violate U.S. law. We urge the administration to reconsider its misguided approach of increasing tariffs, as they are directly paid for by American companies and consumers.”

But it‘s cool! According to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a cartoon robber baron who is deeply in touch with the concerns of average Americans, no one will even notice they’re paying more. “Because it’s spread over thousands and thousands of products,” Ross told dumbfounded hosts on CNBC, “nobody’s going to actually notice it at the end of the day.”

Of course, the fact that the next wave of tariffs will start at 10 percent on September 24 before rising to 25 percent on January 1, in order to somewhat spare holiday shoppers buying Chinese imports, would appear to suggest that the secretary is full of shit.