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The madness of Donald Trump's tariffs - his pride goes before our fall [1]

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Date: 2025-07-11

Donald J Trump, President of the United States, is dead wrong on so many issues that he presents critics with almost unlimited opportunities. Its not so much that he is wrong philosophically or politically, though that may also be the case. He is most often simply wrong by virtue of being profoundly ignorant and lacking in curiosity that would let him alleviate that ignorance.

Since his tariff roller coaster has been in the headlines, partly because he himself publicizes it, and partly because of the chaos it creates in financial markets, that is a timely topic to consider with respect to his ignorance. His use of tariffs is especially revealing since it is typical of his blundering and misguided approach to governance.

He has a minimal understanding of almost any topic, views himself as an expert in everything, and refuses to listen to genuine expert advice. Then, surrounding himself with toadies, wackos, suspects, and grifters, he proceeds with great fanfare to wreak havoc on others by acting on dearly held, false premises. Then, lastly, he proclaims success “like you’ve never seen”.

Trump is adamant in his core misunderstanding of tariffs. He proclaims incorrectly that tariffs are paid by foreign countries sending products to the US. No matter how many times he is told that US importers, Americans, pay those taxes when the products arrive in US ports, he cannot grasp that fact. I say that he does not understand this, out of generosity, rather than accusing him of malign intent. For the sake of discussion, we will just leave it at that.

Trump’s second great misunderstanding of economics is the nature of trade balances. He is certain that when trading with foreign countries, if you buy from them more than you sell to them, they are winning and you are losing. They are ripping you off and taking advantage of you. You get their products and they get your money. Its an even trade, but not in Trump’s mind. He ignores the products you get in the trade, zeros in on only the money they receive, and concludes foreign countries are ripping us off.

Now combining these two great misunderstandings, Trump devises a solution to his perceived problem, the trade imbalance. He will apply a tariff on foreign goods from countries that buy less from us than we buy from them. He will keep this tariff in place, punishing the foreign country until they relent, and force their citizens to buy the same amount of products from the US that we buy from them.

Let us consider for a moment three countries whose main export is coffee - Brazil, Vietnam, and Columbia. Trump would considers that they should buy an equal amount of our main products, 70 percent of which are financial services, professional services, health care, and entertainment. Which is to say that Trump would have the farmers of these three agricultural countries buy more US accounting services, colonoscopies, and movies. At least the last one of those is not absurd just very unlikely. They are already awash in American entertainment.

In all fairness, Trump does not actually want Brazil’s trade to be subject to tariffs because of their trade imbalance. Brazil actually imports more from the US than we import from them. So, he should be happy. Not so, he still wants to impose tariffs of 35% on Brazilian goods. Why? Because his pal, Brazilian ex-president Bolsonaro is under indictment for plotting a coup to overthrow their government. I await his explanation for how this affects United States security.

So, in Trump’s estimate tariffs are a sort of Swiss Army knife that can be used to extract concessions of all sorts from foreign governments, not just as he proclaims, to remedy trade imbalances, or to persuade countries aiding illegal immigration and drug trafficking, or engaging in unfair trade practices, to mend their ways. One could get the impression that he just enjoys threatening and intimidating people and looks for excuses to do it. It makes him feel good about himself.

In Trump’s vision every other country in the world is doing something vile to the United States. He is going to force all 192 of them, well except for his favorite dictatorships, to submit to his will. This is an extension of his victim complex whereby he perpetually sees himself as the subject of grave injustice and persecution.

Even Canada, our number one trading partner and long time close ally, is in Trump’s tariff cross hairs because, he asserts, they are part of the US fentanyl problem. They are not. Nonetheless, to have a chance of dodging economy wrecking tariffs, they are engaging in a charade of “fighting the cross border drug trade”. There is none. All this to pander to his fragile ego. All these charades would be apparent and embarrassing to anyone else, but Trump seems to think he is still in a reality TV show where mere appearances are quite good enough for an audience willing to suspend disbelief for an hour or entertainment.

So, while Trump amuses himself pretending to solve problems that do not exist or that he himself has created, the rest of the world reels from the daily gyrations his tariff policy imposes on the highly integrated system of world trade. Someone recently compared him to an arsonist with a water hose, starting fires so he can play at putting them out.

If he could actually put them out, that would be another matter. Instead, he is likely to destroy the United States’ position as the most secure investment opportunity in the world and leave generations of Americans to pick up the tab for his folly. Who profits from all this but our global competitors China and Russia.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/11/2332838/-The-madness-of-Donald-Trump-s-tariffs-his-pride-goes-before-our-fall?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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