Regular readers of this site are familiar with my love of understatement. Its use can be unassertive in intent, perhaps a softening of aggression, or it can be rather sophisticated in deliberate nuance. The joy, hence my love, of understatements lies in deciphering which use the writer chose — although sometimes that choice remains a mystery, and who doesn't love a good one of those?
This morning, a classic arrived in my inbox. "The prevailing sense at the end of week one was that Trump 2.0 was altogether more polished and professional than Trump 1.0," wrote Politico's Playbook. (The sentence is a mystery in itself. Other than Trump 2.0's polished manglers of professionalism, among whom did this sense prevail?) A few words later came the frisson of the undecipherable, the mysterious: "At the end of week two, though, things appear a bit different."
"A bit different" indeed, assuming "a bit" means enormously. So cheeky (I think). Politico followed that with yet another understatement. "[The] administration seems to have some of the same flaws of Trump’s first go-around." On non-catastrophic days one may call the administration's gross mismanagement flawed. On other days, most days, the administration is an unmistakable calamity, i.e., never seemingly so.
Trump's not done yet, there are two days to go, but so far he is finishing the second week in a bonanza of the shockingly repulsive and downright imbecilic. His press conference reaction to Wednesday's air tragedy — the repulsive portion — I wrote about here. While his repulsiveness was but a part of his standard-issue imbecility, the latter he unveiled in spades last night — and with a bang.
Trump began by threatening "BRICS Countries" with a 100% tariff in a Truth Social post. (Note: 10 days ago he didn't know what countries constitute BRICS.) Next, speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, he said "I’ll be putting the tariff of 25 percent on Canada and Mexico, and we will really have to do that because we have very big deficits with those countries. Those tariffs may or may not rise with time."
They also may or may not be enacted on Saturday, his target date, since he has yet to hear from the last person he speaks with on Saturday. Today the White House confirmed their imposition, along with an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods. Nonetheless I repeat: If announced, it will be "for a number of reasons," said Trump, citing border crossings, incoming fentanyl and again trade deficits. "Look, Mexico and Canada have never been good to us on trade," he continued. "They’ve treated us very unfairly on trade, and we will be able to make that up very quickly because we don’t need the products that they have."
Trump understands trade deficits as well as he understands tariffs, which is to say, about both he is ignorant as hell. He absurdly believes that foreign nations — not importing businesses and consequently consumers — pay U.S. tariffs, and on trade deficits the words are wicked and his calculus is done entirely in red ink. "The truth is that the trade deficit has a lot going for it," wrote a trade-policy expert during the 1.0 debacle. In fact a deficit "is to be expected for a country whose government issues the world’s primary reserve currency," he added, just before observing that Trump and associates "don’t seem to get this."
Neither do Trump voters "get" that the people he's least concerned about are — Trump voters. Reportedly he's still pondering whether to include oil as a taxed item. "We may or may not," said Trump, again. His followers might like to know that 70% of U.S. crude oil is imported from Mexico and Canada. Should he proceed with taxing it, in some parts of the U.S. a gallon of gas could shoot up in price by as much as 70 cents.
As for other commodities, the blithering coxcomb said "we will be able to make [them] up very quickly because we don’t need the products that they have." Michigan State University's professor of management Jason Miller has a differing opinion, because he's informed. "The scary thing is the list of products is very, very long," and many fruits and vegetables from Mexico are essentially irreplaceable domestically. "You'd certainly expect to see an impact on [their] prices," said Miller.
From Mexico, not much love, and even less understanding. Its president, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced Wednesday that "if it happens, we also have our plan," which she had already announced in November: "One tariff would be followed by another." Neither would our neighbors to the north take kindly to Trump's unneighborly action. Canada's Prime Minister Trudeau said today they're "ready with a response — a purposeful, forceful but reasonable, immediate response. It’s not what we want. But if he moves forward, we will also act."
Acting without purpose and unreasonably are Trump's modi operandi, however. Slapping 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada would, in the first year, lead to a GDP drop of 4.1% in both nations. "The economic consequences of such tariffs would be severe for North America, potentially causing significant disruptions to growth and trade relations," writes the research director for trade at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. And the U.S.' GDP would be roughly $200 billion lower each year — each agonizingly awful year until the imbecile is booted from office in 2028.
But take heart. We need only remember that every awful year of Trump is a really marvelous year for civilized Americans, for they shall inherit the beatific booting of '28. And that, perhaps, will at least make the next four years a trifle more bearable for Mexicans, Canadians, and all other civilized peoples too.
Bless his cold little heart, Donald Trump is scripting is very own End Times.
My guess, based on Trump’s past antics, is that the “number of reasons” is there for him to use to claim a fake victory. So, say the tariffs actually get levied tomorrow. Lots of financial panic ensues, stock futures plummet, etc., etc. Then come Sunday afternoon, the White House announces that Canada and Mexico called and with tears in their eyes begged Trump to lift the tariffs and that they will take all his deportees/stop fentanyl/pay for the wall/ whatever, and so they are recinding the tariffs. There were, of course, no calls, but that will be bothsided by the media and Trump will get his “victory.” Obviously I could be wrong, but that’s been his MO for years.