Justin Wolfers

Section 122 says that you can issue a tariff of up to 15%, but it can only last for 150 days.

so the president might be able to brag at night that he's reinstated his tariff regime but he hasn't what's more important is to understand these tariffs are a solution in search of a problem think about it this way why is it we have tariffs well if it's to give the president leverage for these international deals which has become his recent story

Imagine calling up the prime minister of Canada and saying, well, you better do what we want or else we'll issue tariffs.

Mark Carney can count to 150.

Mark Carney is just going to say, I might just wait till the 150 days are over and then you'll get rid of them.

So there's absolutely no leverage you get out of this.

Okay.

So then the president says, no, this is all about onshoring manufacturing.

Okay, so the idea of ensuring manufacturing is you make it more profitable to do business in America.

But this tariff that he just imposed in a fit of peak lasts for 150 days.

So that means it'll be more profitable to do business in America for the next 150 days, but I won't have poured concrete on my factory till day 151.

Therefore, no jobs are coming home as a result of this tariff.

So then Trump's new 10% across the board tariff, what is it?

There's only one thing it is.

It's a tax.

It's a tax on Americans.

What we now have is, you know, I don't know what to make of this.

We have a pro-tax Republican president.

Maybe he's in favor of this tax because it's aggressive, that it takes a bigger chunk out of the pay packet to the poor than it does of the rich.

Maybe he thinks he can baffle us with bullshit and pretend that China's paying, but that's a story that people aren't buying.