These Clowns are Economic Illiterates

Donald Trump has discovered tariffs again, and God help us all. The President and souvenir coin salesman announced this week that he's ready to slap a 25% tax on goods from Canada and Mexico, starting Saturday. It is, to be frank, an idiotic move that would detonate a $1.8 trillion dollar trading relationship and send shockwaves through the North American economy. It's another Trump tantrum, to be sure; but it's also an economic time bomb wrapped in a basic, high-school-level misunderstanding of what tariffs actually are.

They're taxes - plain and simple - paid by American consumers and businesses. Trump treats tariffs like a toddler treats a new word, repeating it endlessly without grasping its meaning in his stained, clutching hands. But these aren't magical tools that force other countries to pay him money. When Trump announces a 25% tariff on Mexican and Canadian goods, he's selling a 25% tax hike on American families already battling inflation. Full stop.

The auto industry is the simplest illustration of the clown show that is the Trump tarrif brigade. Modern vehicles aren't built as much as they're orchestrated, through an intricate process of parts and tooling, crossing North American borders multiple times. A single Ford F-150 engine might rack up more frequent flier miles than a traveling salesman, starting in Canada, crossing into Michigan for additional components, visiting Mexico for assembly, and finally returning to the U.S. for completion. Under Trump's plan - if one can call it that while maintaining a shred of journalistic dignity - each border crossing gets hit with that 25% tax, creating a cost multiplier that would a loan shark blush.

New car prices, already sitting at a wallet-crushing $50,000 average, would jump another $3,000. Answering the market, used cars, the only option left for budget-conscious buyers feeling the squeeze of the ever increasing cost of eggs, would see a similar spike. And this is just the automative sector. Your grocery bill is about to go up, eggs or no eggs. Even avocados are about to finally become the luxury item boomers always claimed they were, with Mexico supplying 90% of American Avocados.

But wait. There's more. Canadian crude oil powers the lion's share of the Midwest's refineries. Slap tariffs on that, ans gas prices will rocket up by 70 cents on the gallon. Even your Super Bowl party will take a hit - between Mexican avocados for Guacamole and Canadian whiskey for the drinks, you might need a second mortgage just to host game day. And good luck with that, in this economy.

Apart from anything else, the timing - while being petulant and arbitrary - is spectacularly bad. After years of pandemic chaos and inflation battles, America's economy is finally finding its footing, something Trump could easily assume and pomulgate credit for. His tariff adventurism is profoundly stupid, even by his standards, even in the context of serving himself.

This gets to the heart of the problem. Trump, his clownish policy ghouls and his brain-rot-addled MAGA faithful are economic illiterates who do not understand modern commerce. Trade isn't a heavyweight boxing match where only one fighter can win. The success of North American economic integration proves this. Over three decades, three nations have built an economic ecosystem so intertwined that attempting to separate it - for no damn good reason beyond jingoism and a half-baked perfomance as a school yard bully - would be like performing surgery with a chainsaw - messy, destructive and somewhat self defeating.

That $1.8 trillion in annual trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico is triple America's trade with China. It represents millions of jobs, countless interconnected supply chains, and a level of economic integration that has helped keep North America competitive in an increasingly multipolar world. Trump's tariffs wont bring jobs back to America - they'll just make everything more expensive in a scorched earth exercise in fiscal fanaticism.

The agriculture sector has seen this farce before. During Trump's first term, his childish tariff obsession triggered retaliatory measures that devastated American farmers. The government response? That old-time stalwart of Republican small government - billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts.

Speaking to The Independent, Nebraska Farm Bureau president Mark McHargue put it plainly: "We would rather get our money from the market. It doesn't feel great to get a government check." But here we go again, charging toward another self-inflicted wound with all the forethought of a lemming with a death wish.

What's the gain here? America's trade relationships with Canada and Mexico aren't broken. They're working exactly as designed. The U.S. isn't being swindled, it's leading a regional economic partnership that has only helped it maintain its global competitive edge. Trump's tariffs won't fix anything, because nothing is broken - except, perhaps his and his rabid followers' understanding of economics.

Will Trump actually pull the trigger? History suggests he will, with all the economic sophistication of a bull in a china shop who thinks he can improve the merchandise by pulverizing it. Once again, American consumers and businesses will be forced to pay for a policy based on a comprehension of economics that wouldn't pass a 2013 Buzzfeed quiz, all because Trump and his voters are both functionally and economically illiterate. These are stupid, stupid people, enacting stupid, stupid policies that will hurt everyone they hate half as much as themselves, and at their own expense.