President Donald Trump does not understand tariffs or trade. Not. One. Bit.
For starters, he still claims that when he imposes, say, a ten percent tariff on goods from China, China pays “billions” to the U.S. government.
That’s not how this works.
When Trump imposes a tariff on Chinese goods, Americans who buy those goods pay the tariffs – not China.
That said, President Trump’s haphazard tariff policies have been called a “con,” and have cost jobs, profits, and even forced farmers “to leave their crops to rot.”
It’s also costing investors, which includes anyone with a 401(k) retirement plan.
On Monday, Trump tweeted, “China has agreed to reduce and remove tariffs on cars coming into China from the U.S. Currently the tariff is 40%.”
Apparently that was untrue. It temporarily sent the declining stock markets soaring. But on Tuesday investors realized – after not one Trump administration official could explain what the president was talking about – it was all bluster, and the DOW, for example, right now is heading down about 175 points.
To make matters worse, Trump just posted these grotesque tweets, calling himself “a tariff man,” and proclaiming, “MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN.”
Take a look at his tweets from late Tuesday morning, which reveal he really has no idea what he’s talking about:
UPDATE: 12:53 PM ET –
DOW now down more than 550 points.
Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr and a CC license