“Tariff,” Donald Trump has said many times, “is the most beautiful word in the dictionary.”

While there are many political positions that the incoming president seems to have adopted later on in life, as the Guardian US business editor, Dominic Rushe, explains, his commitment to tariffs is long and deeply held.

And, as he announced last month, as soon as he enters the White House again, he will seek to impose tariffs of 25% on all imports from Canada and Mexico, as well as an extra 10% on products from China.

It is a policy that, partly, Trump uses as a threat – a negotiating tactic to try to force concessions from some of America’s biggest trading partners on unrelated issues. But it stems from conviction too, and the belief that a tariff regime has the potential to bring back manufacturing jobs right across the US.

Still, as economists warn it could cost each household in the country up to $2,500 extra a year, will Trump actually go through with his plan? And if he does, will those jobs come back anyway?

Meanwhile, senior China correspondent Amy Hawkins tells Michael Safi that China has spent a lot of time preparing for Trump’s tariffs, with the potential that the world economy enters a trade war that could be painful on all sides.