Trump’s massive escalation of his trade war was far worse than expected. The president just launched a major worldwide economic war for no real reason, and he and his allies cooked up bogus numbers to justify their unprovoked aggression. It is an economic war based on lies.
Many news reports have referred to these tariffs as reciprocal because that is what the administration calls them, but there is nothing reciprocal about any of this. The countries targeted with significantly higher tariffs have generally low tariffs on American goods. Trump’s trade war is as far from tariff reciprocity as it is possible to get.
The president has arbitrarily imposed one of the largest tax increases in American history. As Americans realize what he has done and how much it is costing them, the political backlash will likely be severe. If there is any good news in all of this insanity, it is that Trump has probably destroyed his presidency in just the first three months of the new term.
There isn’t much point in trying to understand why the president has chosen to wreck the economy, but there are some explanations we can dismiss. This has nothing to do with making America wealthier or stronger. There is no long-term strategy at work here. The president chose to indulge his bizarre delusions about economics, and he seems indifferent to the destruction it will cause.
As far as I can tell, Trump just wants to cause widespread harm. It is similar to his frequent use of broad sanctions. It doesn’t matter to him if these coercive measures achieve anything. He just wants to inflict pain on others to show that he has power. The more pain he can inflict, the more he enjoys it.
Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
