Tariffs

Back in 2016, I quickly learned, thanks to Brexit, that anyone who talked about trade solely in terms of tariffs, really didn't understand trade at all.

So far, so Brexit.

But Donald Judas Trump has been pbsessed with tariffs for decades, and so yesterday, he fulfilled his dream of imposing tariffs on the entire world, but not Russia.

After the announcement, some people cleaver than myself did calculations and showed that the barriers other countries had supposedly imposed on the US were totally wrong. So, how did Trump get his figures?

"The Trump administration calculated "tariff rates" by taking the US trade deficit with the respective country and dividing it by the country's exports to the US. And then the tariff rate of the US is often just set by cutting that made-up "tariff rate" in half."

"Furthermore, the Trump admin only used the trade deficit in goods. And if the US balance of trade with a country is roughly even (or trade deficit to imports is less than 10%), the tariff rate is listed as 10%."

And whchever database the administration took the list of countries from, it seems the US have acknowelgded Taiwan for the first time, and :

"He has introduced a 10% tariff on the British Indian Ocean Territory.

The only inhabited island there is Diego Garcia, home to US service personnel.

TRUMP HAS PUT A TARIFF ON A US MILITARY BASE!"

Trump also imposed 10% tariffs on Heard Island in the Antarctic, inhabited only by penguins, and therefore has no exports or imports with the US or anyone else.

To quote Bernstein:

"The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”