A bunch of folks have asked for my take on the new tariffs. Instead of texting, tweeting, or DM’ing half-baked thoughts, here’s a more complete (but still informal) 30-minutes-of-writing brain dump of what I think, why I think it, and where this might lead.
Brain Dump Notes (in no particular order)
The math doesn’t math.
The actual math behind these tariffs is fiction. There’s not a single serious economist—left, right, or center—who stands by the numbers justifying them. It’s monkey math, and even the monkeys who invented monkey math are probably offended.
Tariffs don’t work like this.
Tariffs at this scale have never been good for the U.S. If there’s any valid use case for them, it’s in narrow, strategic situations—not this global shotgun blast. You can cue the Ben Stein scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off because that’s how tired and recycled the pro-tariff arguments are.
Trump’s been on this for decades.
He’s been saying we’ve gotten a “raw deal” globally since the ’80s. What’s the end goal? I honestly don’t think there is one. Occam’s Razor: he just believes it. That’s it.
This makes us poorer and weaker.
The net result: we all lose. Prices go up, global relationships sour, and we look like amateurs on the world stage. Also probably unconstitutional, but that’s a whole separate discussion.
The world is more interconnected than ever.
I know that phrase is played out, but it’s true. Go look at your mountain bike—trace each part back to its country of origin. It’s a global machine. We’re all better off because of that. Want to pay more for the same (or lesser…in the short term) stuff? Cool, neither do I.
A trade war will suck
Having a standoff with literally the rest of the world over trade is not good for us, especially when we have so little to gain. I don’t know where D Trump got the idea that global trade was the problem to fix when it came to making America a better place, but I really question this approach based on the brevity of the “problem” alone.
Capital doesn’t pivot overnight.
Sure, tariffs might incentivize U.S. manufacturing (which is far stronger than people realize) in theory, but no one’s going to pour billions into a new factory if policy can just flip again in four years. This isn’t how business confidence works. Capital allocation takes time, and trust.
Jobs aren’t coming back.
Robots took them. Not Vietnam. Not Mexico. Automation is the elephant in the room, and we’re on the edge of a real robotics wave. (That’s a whole separate post.)
Self-reliance is a fantasy.
We don’t have the resources to go it alone. No matter what your drunk uncle says at Thanksgiving, isolating ourselves would be economically suicidal.
Markets hate this.
They already do. And if this keeps going, recession (or worse) is almost guaranteed. Investors are already pricing that risk in. Just look at the 10-year yield falling below 4%—a flight to safety.
Both sides agree this is stupid.
From Ben Shapiro to Ezra Klein, smart voices are calling this out. It’s rare we get bipartisan agreement. That should say something.
This isn’t how progress was made.
Look at the quality of life improvements since 1950. We live like kings thanks to a combo of energy development, tech, and global trade. That’s the engine. And this tariff mess throws sand in the gears.
Builders need stability.
I build companies. That requires consistency, not chaos. Tariff policy whiplash makes it harder to plan, harder to invest, harder to raise money and harder to grow. I don’t want to build in quicksand or amid earthquakes; company building is hard enough as is.
What’s Trump really thinking?
Good question. Maybe he’s surrounded by more yes-men than I previously pretended. Maybe he believes this stuff. Maybe it’s just ego. Sam Harris has pointed out how erratic and dangerous Trump was behind closed doors—and if even half the stories from the generals around him are true, we should all be deeply concerned. This isn’t about “mean tweets.” It’s about temperament.
Theories? Here’s two:
- Jokernomics.
If world leaders think you’re unstable—like Heath Ledger’s Joker—they might negotiate differently. But that’s short-term chaos with long-term fallout. You lose trust, lose influence, lose allies. - Force a recession to refi the debt.
Maybe the goal is to crash things a little, push the Fed to cut rates, then refinance the national debt. I see the logic. But it’s a reckless path—and there are far better ways to get there. (worth noting, the 10 year did fall below 4%)
Character matters.
How you do something matters just as much as what you do. Even if you wanted to renegotiate global trade, this isn’t the way. It’s not just optics—it’s competence. Leadership style does matter.
Could there be corruption?
Maybe. Maybe some of Trump’s circle benefits from this somehow—shorting the market, investing in distressed assets. But I doubt it. The scale of wealth destruction from these policies would dwarf any upside from a few clever trades. Plus, it’d be *so* obvious if this was the okay. But Still, maybe?
There’s a line from Casino that sticks with me. De Niro’s character fires the yokal slot machine manager for missing the fact that a machine was rigged. “If you didn’t know, you’re too fucking dumb for the job. If you did know, you were in on it. Either way, YOU’RE OUT” – Trump is directly benefiting in scandalous ways or he’s too stupid (or risk seeking) to see how outcome asymmetry makes the juice not worth the squeeze.
That’s how I feel right now.
Further Reading
- Tyler Cowen – Liberation Day was Worse Than Expected
- Larry Summers – Tweets + YouTube from 4/3
- Ben Shapiro – Podcast from 4/3 – If Ben hates Trump policy, you know its bad.
- Funky Tariff Math – WSJ
- Kyla Scanlon’s latest substack