When you go to a Best Buy store in most states, a sales tax is paid on the purchase. It would not be a good feeling to pay an additional secret sales tax on top of that.

Sounds like a hypothetical situation that could never possibly happen, right? Wrong!

This isn’t a hypothetical situation. It’s actually happening. The only problem is, it’s the government that’s leveling an additional, secret sales tax. And it starts next week.

That’s correct, starting next week, if you go to Best Buy or other electronic stores, consumers will be paying 3 to 6 percent more for most consumer electronics, according to a study by the Consumer Technology Association.

Consumers will be paying more because President Trump decided to levy a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of imports from China, including components that get put into most U.S. electronics.

“These tariffs, which come on top of a previous round affecting $50 billion in imports, will hit American consumers in the pocketbook,” USA Today noted in an editorial.

The newspaper also sounded an ominous but correct warning. “Things could get even worse,” the editors wrote, “because tariffs have a way of leading to other tariffs.”

Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports recently, which made American car companies less competitive. So now he’s considering a tariff on foreign-made cars that could boost the price that everybody pays for a new car by a whopping $5,000. That $2,000 you received from tax reform is gone.

Again, that would be in the form of a secret sales tax. You would never see it on the ticket of the vehicle or the receipt. And you might think that inflation is getting out of hand. But no, it is all about the President getting into a fight with another country and you, the consumer footing the bill for that fight.

President Trump likes to complain about bad deals and say that he’d like to make better deals for Americans. So, Mr. President, explain how is this new stealth tax a better deal for millions of Americans.

David Williams is President of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.