Donald Trump’s tariffs are nothing short of senile
Donald Trump didn’t know what a tariff was the first time he was in office, and as is always the case with him, he hasn’t learned anything about tariffs since that time. He campaigned on the promise of fixing everything with even more tariffs, and because the media refused to do its job and explain that a tariff was not what Trump was claiming it was, a lot of dumb voters thought it sounded like a good idea. They’re about to find out otherwise.
Trump has now announced his first round of proposed tariffs, and it’s all so stupid and confused, you almost have to chalk it up to senility. True, Trump never did know what a tariff was. But there’s something particularly dementia riddled about announcing huge tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada until they fix the border, and huge tariffs on China until it fixes the Fentanyl crisis. For lack of a better word, this is moron level policy. It’s what the addled drunk at the end of the bar would try doing if he woke up and was suddenly President.
This tariff gambit is going to fail miserably, for too many reasons to list. For one thing, border crossings are down under President Biden. What exactly is Mexico supposed to do? The Mexican government can’t overtake the cartels. Yet Trump absolutely cannot go through with these tariffs, because goods from Mexico would instantly become 25% more expensive – a recipe for inflation. Didn’t this idiot just run on a platform of magically fixing inflation? Nevermind that Biden already fixed inflation.
So the question becomes what Trump thinks he’s going to get back in return from Mexico, Canada, and China in exchange for not implementing these idiotic tariffs. These nations know that Trump can’t implement these tariffs, which means he has no leverage at all. But with his dementia, and already being the world’s worst businessman before he went senile, does he know that he has no leverage?
We’ll see if these other heads of state offer to give Trump some small superficial “victory” to allow him to save face while dropping his tariff threats, or if they’ll leave Trump hanging out to dry.
Either way, this is a completely senile “strategy” on Trump’s part. But what would you expect from a guy who’s so far gone, he thinks Hannibal Lecter is a real person and obsesses over getting electrocuted and eaten by sharks.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report