Trillions of dollars lost. The stock market in turmoil. A recession possibly around the corner.
All thanks to what Donald Trump calls the most “beautiful” word in the English language: tariffs.
But why on Earth would Trump want to do this to the country, to the global economy, and to his own presidency less than 100 days into his second term? Why has he crashed his own approval ratings on this all-important issue? Lost the support, at least initially, of billionaires like Bill Ackman and maybe even Elon Musk, too?
Is it maybe because he is economically illiterate? On multiple occasions, Trump has confused the trade deficit with the budget deficit. He has repeatedly (and falsely) claimed that it is foreign governments, and not US businesses or consumers, that pay the tariffs. His formula for calculating ‘reciprocal’ tariffs was a joke. ….more
