Not content to destroy our government without the consent of the people or a vote by Congress, Trump decided to levy some weird tariffs on the entire world (except, for example, Russia and North Korea and some other awful dictatorships that are his buds) and immediately the stock market crashed!
From today about an hour ago (it’s 8:00 am CST right now
China retaliates with 34 % tariffs on US goods
There’s a fundamental problem with Donald Trump’s new trade policy: it fails a test that actual 5th graders can pass. I know this because I tried explaining his “Liberation Day” trade plan to one last night. Here’s how that conversation went:
“Imagine you want to buy a toy at a store which costs $50. You pay for the toy and walk away with it. The President looks at that transaction and says ‘wait, you paid the store $50 and the store paid you nothing, therefore the store is stealing from you. To “fix” this, I’m going to tax the store $25. From now on that same toy costs $75.”
The 5th grader looked at me like I was crazy. “Whaaaaaaat? None of that makes sense. If I pay for something, it’s not stealing. And taxing the store seems stupid, and then everything is more expensive. Why would anyone do that? That can’t be how it works.”
This is the core problem with Trump’s “Liberation Day” trade policy: it fundamentally misunderstands what trade deficits are. And if you think that’s bad, just wait until we get to the part where this policy declares economic war on penguins and our own military base.
Trump trying to blackmail the world
