Subject: Re: World’s Trade Map, Minus the U.S
When the economy craters, it will be TACO TIME AGAIN !!!

If if true, that might not help things. Yes, he might blow out the matches, but the house is already on fire.

No matter how much Mr Trump de-escalates, it seems certain that US tariffs will settle at average rates very much higher than they have been historically, which hurts the US economy directly. It seems pretty certain they will also be more changeable and more uneven and economically distorting. Plus the erosion of trust and predictability will hurt all economies for many years to come.

If you buy something imported for $100 that you could only get made locally for $110, you and your country as a whole are $10 better off. Mr Trump sees that as a straight up loss due to theft of $100, and nothing and no-one can ever persuade him otherwise. Consequently he will never fully chicken out or back off, since every tariff is (in his eyes) stopping ongoing theft that is hurting the US economy, meaning the bigger the better.

Jim