Feb.14

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Tariffs: Trump Acts Like the WWE Hall of Famer That He Is

We often reference Donald Trump's time as a reality TV star. However, one should also recall that he is a big fan of, and a Hall of Famer for, World Wrestling Entertainment. Not surprising, given how much Trump and professional wrestling have in common: lots of bluster, lots of drama and, generally, very little substance.

There may be no current issue where this facet of Trumpism is more on display than the ongoing performance of tariff theater. Yesterday was supposed to be the day that Trump put on his serious face and announced what tariffs he's going to impose, and on whom. He's been teasing it all week, just like WWE teases its weekly Friday Smackdown. Heck, we're kind of surprised Trump doesn't call it the Tariff Smackdown.

As you might guess from this, if you did not know already, Trump didn't actually announce much of anything. The "big" news yesterday was the announcement of a policy that Trump called the "Fair and Reciprocal Plan" on trade. It says that the various executive departments will take a look at tariff rates, report back... sometime (maybe by April?), and that information will be used to "restore fairness" in the United States' trade relationships.

In other words, there has been no actual change in policy, as yet. There wasn't even much of a clue as to what hypothetical changes in tariff rates might be imposed, either in terms of which countries might be targeted, or which goods. The release from the White House lists a half-dozen examples of what it considers unfair trade practices, but doesn't even commit to action in those (ostensibly egregious) cases. Further, as we've already been reminded, less than a month into Trump v2.0, any "new" tariffs might only last for 24 hours before they are lifted.

We wish we understood this approach of threatening big action, and then not following through. We've got our guesses as to what's going on, of course:

• This is a negotiating tactic (or, at least, Trump thinks it's a negotiating tactic). In support of this thesis, we will note that the release yesterday makes use of the phrase: "THE ART OF THE INTERNATIONAL DEAL." Because if you're looking for ideas about complicated international negotiations, the place to look is definitely a 38-year-old book by a small-time real-estate operator who couldn't even bother to do the writing himself, and so hired a ghostwriter.
  
  
• Trump, reality star and wrestling hall-of-famer that he is, loves the drama and loves the oxygen he sucks up, and is going to drag this out for as long as is possible, in search of headlines.
  
  
• Ultimately, Trump knows that any tariffs he imposes are going to create some pain (and maybe a lot of pain), both in terms of the stock market and in terms of consumers' wallets, and so he's finding it hard to summon up the courage to actually pull the trigger.

That's the best we can come up with. Maybe it's one of these, maybe it's more than one, maybe it's something else. There are two things we are much more confident about, however. The first is that, despite Trump's claims to the contrary, tariffs are not a magic bullet that is suddenly going to raise vast amounts of money for the U.S. Treasury. Yesterday, one Wall Street analyst endeavored to project how much revenue might result from blanket reciprocal tariffs on America's main trade partners. The annual total? A little over $17 billion. When it comes to an economy that produces $30 trillion in economic activity per year, that's a rounding error. Heck, it's a rounding error on a rounding error.

Second is that shilly-shallying around like this ultimately produces the worst of both worlds for Trump. It spooks the markets and makes consumers nervous, while also making other countries more willing to stand up to him, either because the populace is angry and want their leaders to push back (e.g., Canada), or because they have become persuaded that he's just another boy who cried wolf and that he's full of wolf crap. (Z)