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What’s Really Behind Trump’s Tariffs?

Three theories to explain the method to Trump's tariff madness

The Big Picture
Mar 06, 2025

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/trump-tarif...

Another great article that delves deeply into what's going on in our federal government.

unq

What’s Really Behind Trump’s Tariffs?

Three theories to explain the method to Trump's tariff madness

An interesting read, but I think all three of those theories are wrong. I think it's something much simpler:

Trump genuinely believes that deep economic relationships with other countries are bad.

A belief that the U.S. should be more self-sufficient, less engaged economically with other countries, is one of the few policy positions that Trump has always rigorously and forcefully maintained. He sincerely believes that we'd be better off being less a part of a global economy, and more towards an autarky:

This is about economic self-reliance.

Many types of ideological regimes emphasize a desire for self-sufficiency. North Korea has juche. Stalin had the Iron Curtain. Juan Peron had Peronism in Argentina. Franco had his autarky policy. China’s Ming Dynasty and the Tokugawa shoguns of Japan had closed-country policies. Even Xi Jinping has emphasized economic self-reliance over rapid growth.

Trump ultimately isn’t much different. His inherent suspicion of other countries makes him want to be less dependent on them. To Trump, this goal is much more important than Americans’ prosperity. It’s more important than manufacturing strength or the fate of the working class. It’s a political goal whose value to Trump can’t be measured in dollars or jobs or production numbers.

This is American juche. Our own Iron Curtain. America won the Cold War, then we looked at the country that lost and decided to be more like them.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/trump-takes-a-baseba...

Why he believes this stuff is open to interpretation. The most plausible explanation is that Trump's entire business career has approached "deals" as if they are always zero-sum transactions: someone's a winner, and someone's a loser. There can't be a deal where both parties are winners. If the other party isn't being taken advantage of, then they're taking advantage of you. If you believe that, then you're not going to believe in Ricardian comparative advantage or the idea that international trade makes both countries stronger. That can't happen - if the other country is happy and benefiting from the trade, it must mean that you're losing, that you're being treated unfairly.

But I don't believe that he's pushing on tariffs in furtherance of some deeper policy agenda or a desire to annex Canada to emulate McKinley. He's pushing tariffs because he wants the U.S. to be more economically independent, and believes it's better for a country to be economically independent than not - even if it makes the country a little poorer.

A belief that the U.S. should be more self-sufficient,...

I agree with this bit. When we can't get N95 masks because they're all made in China, and the Chinese are using them for their pandemic...that's a problem.

...less engaged economically with other countries,...

Totally disagree with this. Engagement is beneficial on so many levels, not just the basic exchange of goods. Like ancient times when one kingdom would send a princess to marry the prince of another kingdom. It fosters unity, and a less likelihood of warfare. Trading for stuff you don't have and/or can't produce is great, but that's just the obvious bit.

I would be speculating here, but perhaps his talk of tariffs is in lieu of advocating a colonial empire (which he sort of is doing anyway, with talk of taking Greenland). Colonial empires don't need trade as much, because they've seized the resources they need.

I would be speculating here, but perhaps his talk of tariffs is in lieu of advocating a colonial empire (which he sort of is doing anyway, with talk of taking Greenland). Colonial empires don't need trade as much, because they've seized the resources they need.

Economic self-sufficiency can be prioritized in lots of different economic systems. Many of the more outlandish utopian societies aspired to be completely self-sufficient. Modern-day culturally homogenous self-isolating groups will strive to be near-completely self-reliant for non-economic reasons as well (perhaps epitomized by the Amish). The article I linked to above noted a number of very different societies that aspired to autarky, or as close as they could come.

My point wasn't to agree with Trump, but rather to point out that this does seem to be a genuinely and consistently held belief of his. He seems to sincerely believe that international trade involves countries taking advantage of each other - or at least letting themselves get taken advantage of by allowing individuals and companies make those international deals. I think he actually believes that America will be the stronger country if it trades a lot less, and even then on only egregiously favorable terms.

We'll soon see. A lot of folks appear to have thought that Trump was indeed using tariffs as a means to accomplish goals unrelated to trade, but it appears that he genuinely wants to seriously alter U.S. trade flows.

The most plausible explanation is that Trump's entire business career has approached "deals" as if they are always zero-sum transactions: someone's a winner, and someone's a loser. There can't be a deal where both parties are winners. If the other party isn't being taken advantage of, then they're taking advantage of you.

This seems to be the most plausible explanation for everything about Trump. There is no compromise, there is only win or lose. If you do not win, you are a loser.

He lives in a black and white world. In that world, if he does not resoundingly win, he is a loser. He doesn't like being a loser. That is the keystone behind the phrase Everything Trump Touches Dies. It dies because he has to bleed it dry for him to win.

And what bigger thing is there to bleed dry than the United States of America?

--Peter

much simpler..its mobster tactics about control....he lwys wanst something, be it Ukraine's rare earth, with a side serving to his buddy Putin, Canada's mineral wealth, and greenlands wealth and property, which gives a warm water open passage to Russian shippig.
Panama canal the same, he wants it, will hike the charges and weaponize it in global trade routes.just like the Suez canal was often weaponized.. btw russian shipping has been banned there for 2 years by the Panamanians...

he is no more and no less than a Mafia Don (ald)...

"

what you believe that trump believes? that's some mighty fine hedging.
i am willing to concede i dont know what trump believes, other than what may be reliably inferred from psychological profiling.
(e.g., overconfidence in his intellect)

so let's propose there is some 'belief', but track it with something more concrete having thousands of examples over decades :
what he says-> what he does-> what actually results

what he says is often contradictory, sometimes within minutes.
what he does seems to have rather weak correlation. it seems much of time nothing happens.
what actually results also seems weak, given the amount of spin always required.

there is no doubt trump performs under emotion, but that is too unreliable to accord any stable belief.
so for the highest confidence, i have to go with personal financial benefit for him or immediate family.
if trump believes there is personal financial benefit, there are very good odds he MAY say, and certainly act on such. legalities have become an ever decreasing factor. indeed for me, the fact that we are missing some very public transfer of wealth from putin to trump is the most puzzling aspect about the russia situation, although there loads of other documented kompromat issues*.

the longest (say-do-result) data series would be on trump's beliefs pertaining to religion and financial decision making.
in the end, what trump believes and what he understands may have the greatest negative correlation.


*https://www.spytalk.co/

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