The Trump administration is a self-inflicted economic, political, and diplomatic aneurysm, hemorrhaging chaos with no purpose beyond its own destruction.
What’s so stupid about this is that if Trump really did believe in autarky, there are ways to advance that without wrecking the economy. In fact, a good case can be made that we could use simpler supply chains. Covid showed that. If Trump wanted to push some broad bipartisan bill through Congress that would greatly reduce net trade, he could probably do it.
But the way to do that properly isn’t to do it all at once. You phase in tariffs over years. You announce the schedule well in advance, and you give people and companies plenty of time to adapt. Want to phase out NAFTA? Well, the people seemed to have voted for that. So maybe phase it out over 20 years.
But Trump is a moron, so he tries to do everything all at once by fiat.
What’s so stupid about this is that if Trump really did believe in autarky, there are ways to advance that without wrecking the economy. In fact, a good case can be made that we could use simpler supply chains. Covid showed that. If Trump wanted to push some broad bipartisan bill through Congress that would greatly reduce net trade, he could probably do it.
But the way to do that properly isn’t to do it all at once. You phase in tariffs over years. You announce the schedule well in advance, and you give people and companies plenty of time to adapt. Want to phase out NAFTA? Well, the people seemed to have voted for that. So maybe phase it out over 20 years.
But Trump is a moron, so he tries to do everything all at once by fiat.