There is an old saying in Washington that if you want to understand politicians, look at what they do, not what they say. On that front there is no ambiguity. The Republican president is imposing big new taxes, and he is doing it in a way that does not require congressional approval.
Consumption taxes are generally considered to be regressive, disadvantageous to the poor, because they spend a larger portion of their income on consumption and thus the tax. This would contrast with income taxes (which, with progressive tax brackets, hit the middle class harder) or wealth taxes, which tend to hit the wealthy harder.
I suppose that one could argue that a tariff is more-or-less comparable to a consumption tax in that it taxes someone proportionally to consumption, if a lot of that consumption is imported goods.
kagis
These guys at Yale talking about Trump’s tariffs say so:
https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/fiscal-economic-and-distributional-effects-20-tariffs-china-and-25-tariffs-canada-and-mexico