President Trump has already tried to use tariffs to straighten out what he views as a harmful trade deficit. It hasn’t worked at all. In fact, the overall monthly U.S. trade deficit increased by 17% between March 2017 and March 2019.

Even worse, ever since Trump’s new trade war with China, he has had to spend more money bailing out angry farmers hurt by his tariffs than he has taken in revenue from the tariffs themselves.