Trump Announces Blanket Tariffs in His Bid to Crash the Economy

By Jacob Weindling  |  November 26, 2024 | 11:45am
Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
Economy Trump Tariffs
Trump Announces Blanket Tariffs in His Bid to Crash the Economy

Well, it’s almost official now. We’re really gonna try to do this stupid shit. Donald Trump believes he can circumvent all economic knowledge ever gained about how added costs always get passed down to the consumer under capitalism, and the rest of us will have to deal with the fallout of this boneheaded notion that would flunk you out of an economics 101 class. Trump announced today that he will issue executive orders imposing new tariffs on all imported goods from China, Mexico and Canada, with a 25 percent tax on imports from Mexico and Canada and a 10 percent tax on imports from China. The three countries are America’s three largest trading partners, which means that Donald Trump just announced a blanket tax increase on everyone in America.

Trump has announced new, blanket tariffs on all imports from China, Canada and Mexico on his first day in office.

Here is the main trading partner of every US state.

This will make everything more expensive. I know there are those who think they voted for Trump because he’s the business guy and they desperately want to live vicariously through his supposed business genius, but this is quite possibly the most predictable shitshow I have ever seen in American politics. This is going to wreak havoc on the economy, as firms realize that their business model is built for a world that has a basic understanding of how markets work. Now they will have to look at their business through the lens of the childish manchildren who don’t know anything about economics while condescendingly lecturing us how economics work, all while trying to figure out how to adjust to a world where more of their profits go to pay Trump’s tax increase, which those commies at **checks notes** the conservative American Enterprise Institue said would cost America $3.9 trillion and be the “biggest tax hike since at least the 1980s.”

This is the exact type of policy that led high level traders at firms who actually understand the economy like Morgan Stanley and Barclays to bet on high inflation and low growth, two of the three planks of stagflation, literally the worst thing that can happen to an economy. I know there’s a lot of folks out there who think Trump is a special boy who isn’t subject to the regular rules of society, and to a degree that’s true, but speaking as someone who got a Masters in Finance this year, I can promise you that betting against these firms’ economic analysis is not going to make you money in the long run. If you voted for Trump thinking that he will bring prices down, you are in for a really rude awakening next year when everything gets more expensive because we’re dealing with a bunch of fucking idiots who don’t understand the very basics of how markets work. These next four years are going to be impossibly stupid.

 
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