What The Tariffs Are Really About…Maybe
I wrote about the Trumpian tariff regime back when it first started, here and here. Back then, after discarding the idea that there is a purposeful strategy behind it all for lack of evidence, I settled on the idea of DJT as a stimulus-response machine, simply responding thoughtlessly to whatever happened around him at any moment. .
Today’s WSJ includes an op-ed piece by one of their regular writers, Andy Kessler, with the title The New Right’s Zombie Economics that offers another perspective. I think Kessler has a point, so I am going to tell you about it here. The WSJ article is behind a paywall, otherwise I would just include a link and suggest you all read it.
The fundamental idea is contained in this quote from Kessler’s article:
“Why so much tariff love? The mind-meld on tariffs is about power. Everyone wants his finger in the pie. Politicians and technocrats insist they know how to direct a $115 trillion global economy and how many dolls your child needs at Christmas.”
And then he writes this….
“Tariffs bring insider dealing and special interests, as we see with iPhone and some auto exemptions. Are Barbie exceptions next? Mr. Trump admits that tech leaders “all hated me in my first term, and now they’re kissing my a—.” It’s cronyism on steroids.”
Of course, none of this surprises the Dems in the Resistance, they all have been saying Trump is power-mad all along. But on tariffs, well. Kessler points out that in fact plenty of Dems are all on board with tariffs, just not the way Trump is doing them. He notes:
“Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said last month, “Tariffs need to be used like a scalpel, not a hammer.” Let me guess, carving out foreign autos?”
This is Kessler’s basic point. A tariff regime places government officials in the position of deciding what prices you pay for imported products. In an economy that imported more than $US3.5Trillion (yea, that’s Trillion) in 2024, that’s putting a lot of power into the hands of the government. It’s that which has led to a parade of foreign leaders and US CEOs to the White House in the last three months. A__kissing, indeed.
And as to Congress, well, Kessler notes this:
“On April 30, only three Republican senators voted to block Mr. Trump’s tariff policies by terminating the bogus April 2 “national emergency” declaration.”
There are a lot of other great quotes in the piece, Kessler is one of the WSJ’s better writers. Read it if you can. I’ll finish with this one:
“Whether it’s tariffs, green jobs, “made in America” mandates or identity politics, they all have the same aim: government-expressed bossiness.”
I will say here that I don’t see identity politics as government bossiness, but certainly the expression of it through DIE rules and bureaucracies is.
What I would say Kessler ignores is the impact of DJT’s style, which is, I think, what causes Trump Derangement Syndrome. DJT is, at a personal level, an asshole, and more than that, someone who revels in his assholeness. If you spend any time in the world, you know such people exist, you just don’t expect them to hold high office – even though sometimes they do. Think Andrew Jackson, folks. Anyway, Trump’s unapologetic assholeness generates the personal animosity which most non-assholes feel towards Trump, myself included, and makes his brand of government bossiness seem more toxic. I would suggest – and may perhaps write more about it at some point – that Barack Obama’s brand of government bossiness was no less toxic, but that man knew a thing or two about delivery.
And, sad to say, given those three Republican votes in the Senate, this Trumpian version of it is not going away any time soon.