On Sunday evening, President Donald Trump reiterated an unusual ambition expressed by him and members of his administration from time to time throughout his second term: one day, Americans will not pay any more income taxes, and you will have to thank Trump's tariffs for that.

Trump said before boarding Air Force One, returning from Pope Francis's funeral in Rome: "We will make huge profits, and we will lower taxes on the people of this country. It will take some time before we achieve that, but we will lower taxes, and it is possible that we will eliminate them entirely, because I believe that the tariffs will be enough to eliminate income tax completely."

No one likes paying income taxes. But any plan to replace it with tariffs as a source of government revenue will face problems.