Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

While most of us are watching our investments and savings collapse because of the savage-yet-ridiculous tariffs that Trump and his team of economists who must have received their degrees from Trump University, there is an effect of what is going on that is getting little attention, mainly because it is hard to fathom how anything as stupid as applying wide-spread tariffs and so we are thinking more about what it is that we need to stock up on, like toilet paper (a key component of Charmin et al. is northern bleached softwood kraft pulp which mainly comes from Canada).

It is that Trump is turning many countries in the world against us.

The attacks he’s made on Canada and Mexico are unfathomable. Remember, he negotiated the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement, the replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he excoriated more than the Biden family, Hillary, and every legitimate working journalist.

On January 30, 2020, after USMCA had been signed, Trump went to an auto parts plant in suburban Detroit and crowed:

“The USMCA is the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law.  It’s the best agreement we’ve ever made, and we have others coming.”

He went on to say:

“Over the next five years, the USMCA is projected to increase purchases of American auto parts by $23 billion a year, and automotive investment by at least $34 billion.  And it’s the very first trade agreement in decades endorsed by American labor.  We even had — the unions endorsed this, the labor endorsed it.  We had tremendous support all down the line: farmers, manufacturers, labor unions.  This is a great deal and a brilliantly drawn-out deal.”

And now so far as he’s concerned, it doesn’t matter.

He’s slapping tariffs on our neighbors to the north and south.

Now prior to “Liberation Day” (liberate people from their savings?), Trump argued that he was penalizing the two countries because of illegal aliens coming across the borders and fentanyl.

While the amount of fentanyl coming from Mexico in 2024 was sizeable — there were some 21,000 pounds intercepted at the border, so presumably a whole lot more came over — the amount of fentanyl intercepted at the U.S.-Canadian border? 

Forty-three pounds.

Or 0.21% of the drug intercepted at the Mexican border.

But the question that needs to be considered is why applying punitive tariffs is a solution that could be solved by all parties doing a better job at stopping people and drugs from coming over the borders — tariffs that have negative consequences on American citizens?

Now it seems that Trump simply maintains that the rest of the world somehow owes us for simply taking part in the network of global trade.

To be sure, the US has the largest economy in the world. The nominal GDP is on the order of $30.34 trillion.

The European Union is second, at $20.29 trillion.

China is third, with a nominal GDP of $19.53 trillion.

Here’s some math that I’ll do because clearly that is also not a forte of Team Trump economists:

$20.29 trillion + $19.53 trillion = $39.82 trillion

$39.82 trillion > $30.34 trillion

Of course, this is not to suggest that the two economies would join. The EU has its troubles with China, too.

But it is to say that to the extent that Trump is pissing off people in other countries with his unhinged economics those people are likely to start cooperating in ways that they once cooperated with. . .the US.

It has been reported that China, South Korea and Japan are in discussions to create an alliance to deal with aspects of the U.S. tariffs. 

About a week ago that was nearly unimaginable.

Trump will go away at some point. Let’s say he’s replaced by the most internationalist president possible.

What is the likelihood that the rest of the world will have trust in the United States?

Not high.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings. His columns also appear in our Substack newsletter.

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Tariff on Canadian Fentanyl?

Yes, that’s a thing. At least, it’s a thing Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called out in the Senate’s 51-48 vote on a joint resolution the libertarian politician co-sponsored with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) to end the Trump administration’s “emergency” tariffs on various Canadian goods in reaction to fentanyl coming south across the border into the US. 

Without naming Trump, Paul said; “One of the social media posts today said there was going to be a tariff on fentanyl. Really? Do you think the drug dealers are going to pay a tariff on fentanyl? Fentanyl’s not being tariffed.”

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