Let us count the ways in which the tarriffs announced by President Trump are a horrible idea:
1) It will raise prices. That is what tarriffs are designed to do- raise prices on goods. As a general rule, things that raise prices hurt the consumers.
2) It's especially bad because one of the economy was marked as the most important issue by the voters in the 2024 election, and the voters were not happy with President Biden's handling of the economy. So voluntarily raising prices- when people were complaining about the high prices from inflation- is especially foolish.
3) The tarriffs have significantly increased the chance of a recession.
4) What are the purposes of the tarriffs? The President's advisors and staffs are giving contradictory reasons on what the end goal is with the tarriffs. Either they are hiding the reason- or, far more likely, they have no idea.
5) This is solely on President Trump. No one in Congress voted on raising tarriffs; he did not have the buy-in from the House, the Senate, or the public. If this succeeds (and I have no idea what 'success' would look like), the credit belongs to him. If it fails (and, based on the stock market and people's opinions on the economy, I have a very good idea what 'failure' looks like), the blame belongs to him and him alone.
6) He's managed to offend every nation with his 10% across-the-board tarriffs, ticking off allies. The other countries may cut deals with the US- but they also know the US isn't a fair trading partner, and will look for other answers in the long term.
7) The idea is bad- but the execution is far worse. The calculations for the tarriffs were poorly made- to the point that economist Adam Tooze called them "Grotesque".
8) And they also applied tarriffs to uninhabited islands. It's bad enough to think that the US is being run by a wannabe mob boss. It's worse to think that it's being run by a grossly incompetent wannabe mob boss.
9) It's so haphazard- every day the story changes of which countries will have tarriffs and by how much. Not only does this reinforces the idea that the group in the White House have no idea what they are doing, but business thrives on stability- when there is this much chaos, they retreat and stop spending money. Which hurts the economy.
Normally, when a President makes a decision I don't agree with, I at least usually understand what they are thinking. On this one, I'm completely lost. I'm not a conspiracy theorist- but I am completely lost what the purpose of these tarriffs are supposed to be. I don't see how this helps the country, the world, or even Trump politically.
The tarriffs are a bad idea, poorly executed, and an embarassment to all involved. It will hurt the country, the world, both in the short term and the long term.
Outside of that, it's a great idea.
