The Army Draws Strength from Diversity
May 15, 2025
Trump’s First 100 Days: Impeachable Offenses Explained
May 15, 2025
I’M WORRIED ABOUT TARIFFS. Not in the way you may assume. I’m not worried that tariffs will crash the global economy and lead to massive, avoidable suffering. Well, okay, I am, but I’m even more worried that Trump will be talked out of them.
He has already backtracked faster than a hiker who spies a rattlesnake. Trump spent the first weeks of his second term spitting out tariff rates in a twitchy staccato. On February 1, he announced 25 percent tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada (along with a 10 percent tax on goods from China) supposedly due to fentanyl trafficking and illegal border crossings, and then reversed himself. On February 3, he decided upon a 30-day pause on the Canada and Mexico tariffs (which in any case violated the USMCA, the trade agreement with those countries that Trump negotiated in his first term).
He next rumbled about taxing the European Union. On February 10, he announced 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and on February 14 he announced unspecified tariffs on foreign cars. Two weeks later, noting that drugs were “still pouring into our country,” Trump said the tariffs on Mexico and Canada were back on again and would proceed as scheduled on March 4. And they did. But on March 5, Trump said the tariffs on foreign cars would be paused for thirty days. Got that? Neither did world markets, which featured people exchanging incredulous, haunted looks and pounding the refresh keys on their computers.
One day after affirming that the tariffs on our neighbors and most important trading partners would go forward, Trump announced that the Canada and Mexico tariffs were suspended. His decision, he said, had “nothing to do with the market” (financial markets were sliding). Perhaps the fentanyl smuggling magically ceased?
This on-again/off-again havoc continued for several more weeks (a 200 percent tariff on champagne and wine from the EU, 25 percent tax on cars and parts, a tariff on movies, carveouts for various electronics, copper, lumber, etc.) culminating in “Liberation Day” on April 2, when Trump announced a national emergency to justify a suite of tariffs that seemed to have been designed by an illiterate on acid. (Yes, the ones that tariffed exports from islands whose only residents are penguins.)
We were all to move to battle stations because the United States had been running trade deficits with the world for . . . many decades. This, the White House declared, had “hollowed out our manufacturing base . . . undermined critical supply chains” and done other damage to our “competitive edge, our sovereignty . . . and our national and economic security.” Even if this interpretation of trade deficits were true (and it isn’t, we have the world’s strongest economy), nothing that has persisted year in and year out since 1976 can be credibly labeled an emergency justifying the invocation of extraordinary powers.
After “Liberation Day,” the world reeled. The European Union, China, and other nations announced retaliatory tariffs, and markets crashed. The words “Smoot Hawley” were suddenly more popular than at any time since the premier of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” All over the globe, panic buying, hoarding, and anxiety skyrocketed.
And then came the flight of capital. It wasn’t just the obliteration of $8.5 trillion in wealth between April 2 and April 8 (which must be a record for a market crash caused entirely by the whim of one man) but also, for the first time in memory, the dollar was losing its luster as the safe haven in times of upheaval. Instead of rushing to buy dollars, investors were hanging back. As former Fed Chair and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen explained:
Normally, when times are chaotic and uncertainty is high, there’s a desire to invest in safe assets, and that tends to push down U.S. Treasury yields, but U.S. Treasury yields went up. When U.S. Treasury yields go up, normally, that attracts capital inflows that would boost the dollar, but both the dollar declined and U.S. Treasury yields rose. What that suggests is that investors are beginning to shun dollar-based assets and calling into question the safety of what is the bedrock of the global financial system, namely U.S. Treasuries.
The entire edifice of American strength—financial, educational, military, strategic, and moral—was trembling and starting to crack as in the first stages of a massive earthquake.
For a few days, Trump dug in, lecturing the American people that their children had to live with fewer and more expensive dolls, and that this was all part of the great scheme to make us “so rich you won’t know where to spend all that money.” He claimed the tariffs were already working: “We’re making a fortune with tariffs. $2 billion a day!” It was a theme he struck repeatedly in 2024 and since. “We’re taking in so much money, you’re not going to believe it,” he told Fox News.
But a few days later, again, President Tariff backed down. On April 9, he suspended the “Liberation Day” levies for 90 days—though he tacked on an additional 145 percent tariff on China as a face-saving measure. And then, on May 12, he climbed down even from those. As the Wall Street Journal put it, “He started a trade war with Adam Smith and lost.”
As matters stand at this moment (and things may have changed by the time you read this), the overall average effective tariff rate is 17.8 percent—the highest since 1934. It was 2.5 percent when Trump took office in January.
That’s enough to do serious harm to the average consumer. But if the current pattern holds, Trump will back down even more, all while claiming, as he backpedals, that he’s “winning” glorious “deals.”
HOW CAN I POSSIBLY SUGGEST that I would prefer Trump to take the ruinous path on tariffs that he first started down? Sadly, because I think economic pain for the average American is the only thing that really matters.
Since taking office again, Trump has engaged in a level of naked corruption that has no peer in American history. The $400 million Qatar luxury jet is only the latest (and hardly the most lavish) gift he has accepted. He’s been a cash register with the nuclear codes, accepting gifts and probably bribes via memecoins and crypto, deregulating cryptocurrencies to ease the flow, empowering Elon Musk to gain access to confidential information about his competitors, instructing the SEC to cease a fraud investigation of Trump donor Justin Sun ($75 million to Trump digital currency), ending an SEC investigation of Ripple Labs after that company donated $5 million to Trump’s “inaugural fund,” selling tours of the White House to any and all purchasers, and on and on. One could call this third world–level corruption, but frankly, it’s at prices that most tin-pot dictators can only dream of. This is Putin-level corruption.
Will this dent his popularity? Will it be enough to persuade a critical mass of voters that they made a mistake in 2024 that they must never repeat? I doubt it. People are jaded and inclined to believe that such corruption is universal. If the economy is humming along, will this level of thievery by the chief executive give them pause?
Trump has also begun the project of dismantling our democratic system, issuing executive orders when he lacks the power to do so and failing to ask for legislation from a Congress controlled by his own party. Will that be enough to persuade voters of his dangerousness? If inflation is trending down and employment remains strong?
Trump is unravelling our global alliances, siding with our enemies, threatening our neighbors, and placing idiots in charge of our military and intelligence services. He is endangering the lives of thousands of Americans by putting public health in the hands of a fanatic anti-vax kook. He is undermining the rule of law by pardoning all of the January 6th insurrectionists as well as dropping charges against useful politicians like Eric Adams. He is hinting that he might run for a third term, kidnapping immigrants off the streets and sending them to a foreign prison from which there is no escape, intimidating judges, persecuting law firms, and threatening to suspend the ancient right of habeas corpus. Will that move the needle?
Trump has attacked one of the foundations of our prosperity and world leadership: scientific research and development. He is undermining the First and Fifth Amendments by deporting immigrants purely for speech the government dislikes. He has already destroyed the expectation that public life will be conducted with anything resembling adherence to facts and truth, respect for one’s fellow citizens, or basic decency.
But this country’s voters have demonstrated that they can re-elect someone who attempted a violent coup d’état and who demanded that we “terminate” the Constitution in order to put him back in the White House in 2022. They may express disapproval for his wild statements and lawless actions (and polling shows a dramatic decline in his approval ratings), but if the economy revs up and prices come down? What will they say then?
No, sadly I believe that a durable majority of the American people will not turn their backs on MAGA unless they feel dire consequences in their daily lives. The reasons to reject Trump and Trumpism are too numerous to list but the gravamen is this: He threatens to destroy the system of checks and balances adopted two centuries ago that has proven to be the most successful form of government in history. If the American people are too ignorant or complacent or insensate to respond to the manifold depredations of this president, then economic pain may be the only way.
“Experience is the school of mankind,” said Edmund Burke, “and they will learn at no other.”
Bring on the tariffs!
Great Job Mona Charen & the Team @ The Bulwark Source link for sharing this story.
