Donald Trump always talks crazy. The trick in reading Trump thus becomes is this crazy talk or is this a real commitment to crazy?
An example of crazy talk is the big, beautiful wall that Mexico bankrolled on our southern border.
An example of commitment is the near complete closure of that southern border today, sans Mexican wall.
Trump has told us for years that he intends to impose tariffs on our global trading partners. Through the election he promised aggressive tariffs.
And in the first weeks of the new Trump White House, the president’s economic advisers drew up the plans.
Why did no one believe Trump on tariffs?
Tariffs, as any American who has taken a remedial course in economics knows, are a headwind on economic growth and a tax on consumers.
So, why would Donald Trump impose billions of dollars in new taxes on Americans who vote?
It seemed crazy, and somewhere there had to be a catch.
Then came Trump’s “Liberation Day” and this from MarketWatch:
“Many investors were caught flat-footed on (April 2) when Trump unveiled sweeping global tariffs that were much larger than expected.”
On April 3 and 4, the stock market bled some $6.6 trillion in value, making it $11 trillion lost since Trump’s inauguration.
Why did no one believe Trump and his advisers when they said tariffs are coming?
That’s the question the savvy tech investors on the highly popular All-In podcast were asking late last week.
Will Republicans really let Trump do this?
Their guest, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, raised his hand and said, “I did. I will say that I took them totally seriously, so much so that I called my financial adviser after the (March 4) State of the Union address to rejigger my stock and bonds in my portfolio.”
Shapiro is a Trump supporter who thinks tariffs are a terrible idea. There are, no doubt, many of those Republicans still around in a party once shaped by anti-protectionist warriors such as Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman and Phil Gramm.
The key questions now are these:
Is Trump really serious? Meaning, is this truly as audacious as it looks?
Is one man, the president of the United States, deciding that he alone will reshape the global economic order?
Will the UPenn grad whose Wharton professor reportedly called him “the dumbest (expletive) student I ever had!” attempt to singularly reinvent the world economy?
The last time this was done — more than 80 years ago — it took a meeting of 730 delegates from 44 Allied nations in Bretton Woods, N.H.
Is Donald Trump so full of vainglory that he believes he alone can do this or that the world will stand by and let him?
Or that even his own party will stand by and watch their own electoral prospects and nest eggs burn as he plays emperor of the world?
If Trump sticks with tariffs, he will self-destruct
Here I will do my own crazy.
I will bet there are limits to Trump’s ego. I do this knowing he has brushed off rumors of a 90-day tariff pause and essentially told Americans to buck up and take this “medicine.”
There’s a parallel track to Trump arrogance that has built a record of certainty — so much so that you can reliably count on it.
That is his instinct for survival.
If tariffs are a long play that Trump sticks with through thick or thin, he is going to self-destruct. He simply doesn’t have time for a long play.
Independents and moderate Republicans are not going to stand by as trillions more in shareholder value burn on the president’s pyre.
Trump supporter and Texas conservative Ted Cruz has said, “If we go into a recession — particularly a bad recession — 2026, in all likelihood, politically would be a bloodbath.”
The only way Trump survives this trade war
Already Democrats are re-emboldened and marching in the major cities. They have a reason to exist again.
They’re creating a war room and pushing out new voices on digital media. Some “abundance liberals” are calling on the party to repair its stasis in its own blue states such as California and Illinois.
The only way Trump survives is if tariffs were always a bargaining tool — a club to negotiate better terms for the United States with its trading partners.
Opinion: Trump’s sweeping tariffs will do Arizona no favors
For this to work, it has to work quickly. A survivor would know that, and Trump is truly a survivor.
If you doubt it, think how many times in the past you thought Trump was cooked. People have been predicting his demise since his casinos went belly up in the early 1990s.
I never thought he’d make it out of the 2016 GOP primary or that he could survive Jan. 6, 2021. And I was not alone.
No pause on tariffs? Then he better deal quickly
If Trump is going to survive this present moment, he will need to make deals quickly — to do, as Vietnam now proposes to do — knock down tariffs on both sides to zero.
The European Union is now stepping forward and calling for zero-to-zero tariffs on industrial goods as it had once proposed during the first Trump White House. Trump then rejected it.
Nonetheless, if Trump can begin to strike tariff-free trade agreements with dozens of nations, he can start to argue that he is the world leader unleashing global trade, while punishing China for its tariffs, currency manipulation and intellectual-property theft.
The White House says 50 countries have requested talks “about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation.”
If this White House is to avert an economic recession and its own destruction, it had better start lining up those deals.
And in days. Not weeks.
Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump won’t pause tariffs, but he can still save himself | Opinion
