The United States has just come through a period of high inflation. Over the four-year period of Joe Biden’s presidency, every single dollar Americans held in their bank accounts or stuffed under their mattresses lost roughly one-fifth of its value. So it is understandable that when Americans look at the tariff problem, inflation is top of mind.

Specifically, many Americans wonder whether the tariff wall that President Donald Trump erected last year on goods from most countries, including one island populated entirely by penguins, is causing inflation. The answers that researchers are giving to that question are both complicated and kind of horrifying.