How to Think About the Tariffs

Perhaps most importantly, the actual announcement and implementation of these tax increases has made the incompetence and thoughtlessness of this administration even more obvious. The nonsensical “reciprocal” tariff rates published on April 2 were, as best as anyone can tell, generated by a chatbot. Officials repeatedly lied about how the rates were calculated, claiming that each economy’s “tariff and non tariff barriers” policies were quantified individually, when all they did was use a simple-minded formula based on bilateral trade balances in goods with the U.S., which imply nothing about anything. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the administration’s apologists to claim that there is some grand strategy here, or a secret plan, or a complex design that outside observers are simply failing to understand.

And most importantly:

The tariff hikes will harm Americans, they will harm people in the rest of the world, and they will likely fail to accomplish whatever they are supposed to do.