Trump is crazy, but he’s not about to destroy himself with tariffs | Opinion

Donald Trump always talks crazy. The trick in reading Trump thus becomes is this crazy talk or is this a real commitment to crazy? 

An example of crazy talk is the big, beautiful wall that Mexico bankrolled on our southern border.

An example of commitment is the near complete closure of that southern border  today, sans Mexican wall.

Trump has told us for years that he intends to  impose tariffs on our global trading partners. Through the election he promised aggressive tariffs.

And in the first weeks of the new Trump White House, the president’s economic advisers drew up the plans.

Why did no one believe Trump on tariffs? 

Tariffs, as any American who has taken a remedial course in economics knows, are a headwind on economic growth and a tax on consumers. 

So, why would Donald Trump impose billions of dollars in new taxes on Americans who vote? 

It seemed crazy, and somewhere there had to be a catch.

Then came Trump’s “Liberation Day” and this from MarketWatch:

“Many investors were caught flat-footed on (April 2) when Trump unveiled sweeping global tariffs that were much larger than expected.” 

On April 3 and 4, the stock market  bled some $6.6 trillion  in value, making it $11 trillion lost since Trump’s inauguration.

Why did no one believe Trump and his advisers when they said tariffs are coming? 

That’s the question the savvy tech investors on the highly popular All-In podcast  were asking late last week. 

Their guest, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, raised his hand and said, “I did. I will say that I took them totally seriously, so much so that I called my financial adviser after the (March 4) State of the Union address to rejigger my stock and bonds in my portfolio.” 

Shapiro is a Trump supporter who thinks tariffs are a terrible idea. There are, no doubt, many of those Republicans still around in a party once shaped by anti-protectionist warriors such as Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman and Phil Gramm. 

The key questions now are these: 

Is Trump really serious? Meaning, is this truly as audacious as it looks? 

Is one man, the president of the United States, deciding that he alone will reshape the global economic order? 

Will the UPenn grad whose Wharton professor reportedly called him “the dumbest (expletive) student I ever had!”  attempt to singularly reinvent the world economy? 

The last time this was done — more than 80 years ago — it took a meeting of 730 delegates from 44 Allied nations in Bretton Woods, N.H. 

Is Donald Trump so full of vainglory that he believes he alone can do this or that the world will stand by and let him?

Or that even his own party will stand by and watch their own electoral prospects and nest eggs burn as he plays emperor of the world? 

If Trump sticks with tariffs, he will self-destruct

Here I will do my own crazy. 

I will bet there are limits to Trump’s ego. I do this knowing he has brushed off rumors of a 90-day tariff pause  and essentially told Americans to buck up and  take this “medicine.”

There’s a parallel track to Trump arrogance that has built a record of certainty — so much so that you can reliably count on it.  

That is his instinct for survival. 

If tariffs are a long play that Trump sticks with through thick or thin, he is going to self-destruct. He simply doesn’t have time for a long play. 

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