TROLL: Donald Trump defends tariffs as ‘the greatest’

Is President Donald Trump trolling the world again? That’s what it seems like with his newest tweet that defended the 18th century Mercantilist policy of tariffs.

On Tuesday morning, President Trump proclaimed that the import penalties “are the greatest,” slamming nations that have treated the U.S. rather “unfairly” for many years.

Here are his tweets:

Tariffs are the greatest! Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. It’s as simple as that – and everybody’s talking! Remember, we are the “piggy bank” that’s being robbed. All will be Great!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2018

Countries that have treated us unfairly on trade for years are all coming to Washington to negotiate. This should have taken place many years ago but,
as the saying goes, better late than never!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2018

So, tariffs are the greatest? Just ask anyone with a basic understanding of economics.

Here is one of the best quotes from the legend Milton Friedman:

Interferences with international trade appear innocuous; they can get the support of people who are otherwise apprehensive of interference by government into economic affairs; many a business man even regards them as part of the “American Way of Life”; yet there are few interferences which are capable of spreading so far and ultimately being so destructive of free enterprise. There is much experience to suggest that the most effective way to convert a market economy into an authoritarian economic society is to start by imposing direct controls on foreign exchange. This one step leads inevitably to the rationing of imports, to control over domestic production that uses imported products or that produces substitutes for imports, and so on in a never-ending spiral.

Of course, every president likes tariffs, from Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama. Every administration has imposed their own sets of import levies that “level the playing field.”