Pun Salad

Protect our infant industry from those sneaky Chinese!

But in other news…

And as Eric Boehm points out: It's not just the stock market that's in trouble.

"Other than that, though, it's fine!"

Also of note (but also about tariffs):

• It's good for what ails ya? Nick Catoggio examines a Trumpian analogy: Take Your ‘Medicine’.

  When the president is right, he’s right. On Sunday evening, en route to Washington following a very successful weekend of playing golf, Donald Trump told the press on Air Force One that crashing markets won’t cause him to abandon his trade policy. “I don’t want anything to go down,” he said, “but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”

  He’s right. Conservatives understand better than anyone that long-term solutions may require near-term disruption. If you want to balance the budget and reduce the national debt, the only way to do it is by reforming entitlements. That won’t be painless. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.

  Some Trump supporters have even analogized his new tariffs to specific types of medicine, like chemotherapy. But here’s the thing about chemo: There’s a plausible, measurable goal that it’s supposed to achieve.

  Nick links to a relevant tweet from Jessica Reidl pointing to some "plausible, measurable" issues. Lightly edited:

  Trump and and his team have failed to answer the two most fundamental tariff questions:

  1. *What Does Success Look Like?*

     What's the specific goal and the metric to be accountable to? Is it:

     • No trade deficit with any country (impossible)?
     • Other countries cut their tariffs (they offered to!)?
     • Is there a manufacturing jobs target?
     • Onshored industries like garments?
     • An economic growth or investment target?
     • A tax revenue target?
     • Ego-driven intimidation of U.S. corporations?
     • Or just to end intl trade?

  2. *What Does Failure Look Like?*

     What can finally prove to you that this did not work?

     • A market collapse? (check)
     • Global retaliation? (check)
     • Rising prices? Slower economic growth? (coming)
     • A failure to produce a burst or manufacturing jobs or business investment? (very likely)
     • Continued trade deficits with some nations? (guaranteed)
     • Any remaining imports? (guaranteed)
     • No notable budget savings? (very likely)

  If there is no measurable metric of success or failure, then the tariffs are not economic policy - they are an economic suicide pact in service of some philosophical aversion to trading with and being interdependent with foreigners. And we're all just the collateral damage.

  A great deal of social engineering from the left and right could be ameliorated if we just demanded answers to the kind of questions Nick and Jessica are asking.

• Still indispensible. Not only are Jessica's simple questions being ignored, the justifications/explanations we're getting from Team Trump are, um, confused. Jim Geraghty tweeted:

  In short, the Trump administration officials are so gung-ho on the tariffs because they are not a negotiation and also are a negotiation, because they are permanent and also temporary, because they will be a lasting source of new revenue for the government and also a declining source of new revenue for the government, because they’re mirroring the other country’s tariffs and because they’re not mirroring the other country’s tariffs, and because they’ll have the U.S. start making medicines again, make ships again, and make semiconductors again, notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. is already making medicines, ships, and semiconductors.

  I hope this helps explain why Trump and some of his advisers are so enthusiastic about the tariffs.

  That's a plug for his Morning Jolt newsletter for yesterday. Further information about that "permanent/temporary" thing:

  White House senior counselor on trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro is gung-ho about the tariffs because they are a permanent (or, at minimum, a long-term change) in policy designed to overcome longstanding trade deficits and are not up for negotiation.

  “This is not a negotiation. This is a national emergency based on a trade deficit that’s gotten out of control because of cheating,” Navarro said on Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning Futures.

  Meanwhile, our old friend White House National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett is gung-ho about the tariffs because they are a temporary tactic for leverage in negotiations, and they can be repealed in exchange for the right offers from trade partners.

  “So, the fact is, the countries are angry and retaliating and, by the way, coming to the table. I got a report from the [U.S. Trade Representative] last night that more than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation. But they’re doing that because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariff,” Hassett told ABC News’s This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos.

  I'd like to think that Hassett's take is closer to reality, but the fact is: I dunno. And probably the only answer is found between Trump's ears, how the dice in there arbitrarily rock and roll.

  So in other words…

• It's a Schrödinger economic policy. Or as Tyler Cowen puts it, we have A Contagion of Uncertainty.

  The latest rumor, when I started drafting this column, was that President Trump will suspend the tariffs for a 90-day period, with the exception of those on China. Markets started going back up again.

  But “the very latest information” doesn’t stay current for long these days. The new report—but don’t count on it—is that the 90-day pause is not real after all. That revision came out before this draft was finished. And markets again whipsawed.

  The Trump administration has created a new monster—one of unpredictability and erratic behavior. We simply cannot predict with any degree of accuracy what will happen next. By the time you are reading this article, there will probably be some newer report about the tariffs or threat of tariffs, and then another report after that.

  Even if the White House winds up instituting a pause on the proposed tariffs—or ultimately adopts much better economic policies—this seesawing may plunge the American and perhaps also the global economy into recession.

  Coulda had Nikki Haley. That's all I'm sayin'.