The self-proclaimed Tariff Man, in another fit of pique this week, decided to impose another round of tariffs — 25% tariff on $200 billion in goods imported from China. And he went on a twitter rant on Friday explaining to his equally clueless base how tariffs will MAGA.
Most economists think that trump has no clue how tariffs work, or how the economy works or how anything works. Others think that he is just gaslighting the nation, riling up the base and funneling tax-breaks and goodies to his own businesses and those of his wealthy supporters.
Let’s take a look at how experts have responded to these latest assault on our economy and tried to explain ECON 101 to trump and his co-conspirators.
We begin with a succinct summary of the situation by Pete Souza -
The experts at Axios calmly try to explain that tariffs are not paid by China, but by Americans.
NYT tries to explain that tariffs are taxes.
Tariffs will lead to manufacturing job losses, not gains -
The reality — a $1,267 consumer tax.
Farmers going under —
Consumers getting hit -
Those at the lower rungs of the economy get hit the hardest — that includes trump supporters, who will sooner or later feel the pain -
More bad news — in trumplandia -
The destroyer — of 401k balances.
There is more pain to come.
But wait, there is even more ...
A few economists try their hand at educating trump with an ECON for toddlers approach -
A non-economist tries too -
Democrats lend their voices -
Here are a few not-so-diplomatic responses, which try to get to the heart of the issue —
And a few cartoonists try to explain ...
Looks like even Kudlow could not keep on repeating trump’s lies. He admitted so on Fox!
You think all this analysis and attempts to educate POTUS might spark some sanity in this WH? Not quite. Here is the latest word salad from the dungeons of the WH. The MAGA crowd will love the socialist plan to pay farmers to grow crops (feed corn?) to be sent to starving people around the world.
Maybe trump is a moran; perhaps he is just a two-bit conman. Or perhaps this is the trump distraction-du-jour. Perhaps, jr. is trading in stock options. In any case, let’s keep the pressure up — on republicans, the media and on Democratic leaders, to keep exposing the GOP as a gigantic con machine, hell-bent on defrauding and looting the American people and destroying our democracy. They are not just greedy and selfish; they are sociopaths.