Dear Editor, 

Back when I was teaching high school, we used to kid the sophomores that the term sophomore meant a wise fool. We may be in wise fool territory today with Trump’s ultra-high tariffs.

First, one must understand that the balance of trade the US holds with any given nation is simply a measure of the amount of “stuff” we bought from them subtracted from the amount of “stuff” they bought from us. Trump claims that everybody is out to screw us which is not true. We just have a big country with a huge consumer demand for lots of “stuff.”  Trump has mistaken this basic fact for years.

Heather Cox Richardson quoted Laurence Summers, former Treasury Secretary, in her Letters from an American on April 2, “Never before has an hour of Presidential rhetoric cost so many people so much. The best estimate of the loss from tariff policy is now [close] to $30 trillion or $300,000 per family of four.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence posted his opinion “The Trump Tariff Tax is the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history.”

Richardson continued, “Trump claims he is imposing ‘reciprocal tariffs’ and says they are about half of what other countries levy on U.S. goods. In fact, the numbers he is using for his claim that other countries are imposing high tariffs on U.S. goods are bonkers. Economist Paul Krugman points out that the European Union places tariffs of less than 3% on average on U.S. goods, while Trump maintained its tariffs are 39%.”   

On April 4 as more details about the huge tariffs came out, Richardson wrote, “Natalie Allison, Jeff Stein, Cat Zakrzewski, and Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post reported how Trump came to impose the tariffs. After aides from a number of different government agencies came up with options for Trump to review, he decided instead on a different option, one that has drawn ridicule because it is crude and has nothing to do with tariffs at all. He reached the amounts of tariff levies by dividing the trade deficit of each nation (not including services) by the value of its imports and then dividing the final number by 2.”

“The reporters note that Trump didn’t land on a plan until less than three hours before he announced it and made his choice with little input from business or foreign leaders. Neither Republican lawmakers nor the president’s team knew what Trump would do. ‘He’s at the peak of just not giving a f*ck anymore,’ a White House official told the reporters.”

Curiously, one of the few countries exempt from tariffs is Russia, leading one to ask why are they exempt? Regardless, we are now levying tariffs on nearly everyone including our friends, such as Canada and Mexico, despite Trump himself renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with these two countries in his first term. At that time, he claimed that the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) “is the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history. All of our countries will benefit greatly.”

His word means nothing. He has thrown the whole global economic system into turmoil over an incorrect assumption and now risks a recession. He inherited an economy that was the envy of the world post Covid.  

Meanwhile enablers and sycophants on Fox Noise and Newsmax “sane wash” his impulsive decisions as the work of genius. Naw… they’re a blunder from the wise fool, just like his destruction of the EPA, VA, IRS, Attorneys General, Social Security, FBI, etc.

And remember, the supposed justification of this destruction of the American government is to extend his 2017 tax cuts which added trillions to the deficit and will add trillions more if extended. Yes, tax cuts affect middle class voters but mostly enhance the bottom lines of corporations and the ultra-rich. Is there something wrong with the rich paying their fair share?

Bill Thibedeau

Gilpin County