Tariffs are a blunt force instrument, a coercive stick used to force another country’s political leadership to change its trade policy. The logic goes as follows: If the targeted country feels enough pain in its balance sheet, it will eventually come to the table and provide concessions in order to get those taxes lifted.
President Trump buys into the theory like a tourist buys cheap “I love NY” T-shirts in Chinatown. He loves tariffs and has trumpeted their power for decades. If there was a tariff lobby, the president would be the frontman. Trump is so smitten with them that he has proudly referred to himself as “Tariff Man,” as if this gives him superhero-like qualities. His last-minute migration and asylum deal with Mexico last Friday (details of which are scant and may have been agreed to months before) has only made Trump an even more devoted believer of the tariff ideology than he already was.
