The personified vulgarity that is Donald Trump gets up in the morning and, probably sitting on the toilet without washing his hands, picks up his phone and texts the world. He does this often, almost every day. Today he just saw on TV that the Europeans have imposed 50% tariffs. in bourbon and Harley Davidsons in response to the US increase in tariffs on European steel and aluminum, and announcesa 200% tariff on EU wines and champagnes. 200% is a huge, scandalous figure, a reprisal as long as their neckties. It is, of course, a 200% based on the scientific rigor of their brilliant instinct and their Caesarian, Neronian, megalomania, to be precise.
Trump is living out the old protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist obsession of his economic vision, which he told Oprah Winfrey about more than thirty years ago when he was a guest on her afternoon talk shows. The same obsession that, while preparing a speech for the 2017 G-20 summit in Hamburg, led him to write in capital letters on the draft text his advisors had given him a simple three-word phrase: "Trade is bad." The phrase wasn't included in the final version of the speech, but someone picked up the sheet of paper, and journalist Bob Woodward published it in his book Fear.
Trump was convinced that the only way to end the US trade deficit was to blow up the economy, which is exactly what he's doing now. You don't have to be an economist to understand the mutual harm that the tariff war can cause to many businesses and working families around the world. But Trump isn't afraid. On the contrary, he's the one who's frightening.
