Some economists think tariffs never make sense. Others, think that with strategy, thinking carefully about where to apply them, to which countries, on which items, what the different impacts will be, and informing and working with your allies…then tariffs could be a net good despite the costs. That’s not what we got from Trump.
With Trump, we got hectic tariffs that require a daily chart to manage them all. It doesn’t make sense to build a factory based on a short-term tariff that could change at any moment due to a variety of reasons.
Putting tariffs on every country cuts your leverage over any particular one country.
If the goal is to get specific industries back in the US, then you want highly targeted tariffs.
Liberation day tariffs were based on a simple formula and they were absurd on their face. The administration just didn’t do their homework when coming up with tariffs.
Trump ignored free trade agreements that the US had made with countries.
Trump enacts tariffs for a variety of personal reasons that don’t make sense, like tariffing Canada for fentanyl, even though US fentanyl mostly comes through Mexico. If I’m another country watching erratic tariffs, I don’t really know what to do to avoid tariffs, and I’m going to start planning with other countries how to counter this erratic country called the Untied States of America.