Trump’s ‘idiotic’ and flawed tariff calculations stun economists (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Waving a big chart as a prop in the White House Rose Garden, Donald Trump suggested his new tariff plan was simple: “Reciprocal – that means they do it to us, and we do it to them. Very simple. Can’t get simpler than that.”

Perhaps a bit too simple. The method used to calculate the most important numbers in international trade, politics and economics has left some of the world’s leading experts shocked.

For each country, the White House looked up its trade in goods deficit for 2024, then divided that by the total value of imports. Trump, to be “kind”, said he would, however, offer a discount, so halved that figure. The calculation was even distilled into a formula.

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[-] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

The problem with that analogy is toddlers get potty trained well before 80.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I imagine trump is still learning. Or more to the point, failing to

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

It's those damn low-flow toilets that refuse to flush classified documents on the first try.

this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025

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