The buyer pays the tariff. There’s always an incentive for buyers to keep costs low, tariff or not.
For sellers there might be an incentive to reduce prices under some circumstances:
If the seller can’t compete with American products once tariff is added - rarely applicable and you may as well see American products increase their prices to increase profits
If your customers are very price sensitive and might go without your product or find an alternative (so not medication, but some foods perhaps) but you would expect those products to already have low margins so you can’t really reduce your prices
So, is there an incentive for the tariff payer to keep cost lower and not pass it on to consumer?
The buyer pays the tariff. There’s always an incentive for buyers to keep costs low, tariff or not.
For sellers there might be an incentive to reduce prices under some circumstances: