30 years ago a professor explained tariffs to me as “economic sanctions a country puts on itself” and that stuck with me.

April 02, 2025 - 20:38 UTC

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Yeah, mesh that up with the "Daddy's home" meme and you hit it on the nose.
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Trump will prove that description inadequate. A self-imposed... embargo? Blockade? Would be more accurate.
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30 years ago I was still 5 years away from being born but thankfully that doesn't mean I won't get this.

It especially makes sense here. And sadly the gamers who whined about diversity in games wont blame Trump for their PCs getting more expensive to build.
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As an idiot, what is the supposed upside of this? What is Trump's 7D underwater pickleball thinking behind these tariffs?
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He seems to, very genuinely, believe that when he issues a tariff he's levying the tax on the exporting nation, not whatever firm is doing the importing.
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With tax cuts elsewhere, they can make the distribution of income skew towards rich. Also some rentiers benefit.
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To me, it seems like a shakedown. He expects the phones to light up with foreign ministers offering goodies in exchange for preferential treatment / rescinding the tariffs.
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American manufacturing will magically reappear and be cheaper than the foreign stuff.

Yes, only a moron would think this, but here we are.
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Not tariff related but economics related but my 8th grade history teacher said to prepare for retirement as if social security doesn't exist and that stuck with me. That was in 2005/6
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Teachers are heros 💗
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'TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.' - Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_ (1911)
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Generally taught in economics shortly after the part about inflation being the natural, inevitable byproduct of capitalism which also stuck with me.
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He wants to punish the greatest allies to the US. He misread 5% tariffs from Euro for something as being 39% tariffs. He cannot tell the truth.

He wants to break up the EU because Putin wants it, he's now Putin's bitch. He's a small bully. We will bully him back & not buy US products.
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And the EU will not fall
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I mean, there can be arguments made for maintaining domestic production competitiveness for national security, but that’s with the understanding that you’re accepting the tariff pain for a higher priority. This is just punching yourself in the dick because you can.
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That's what mine said, too
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Thinking real hard about how Israel was able to pull off its exploding pager attack by co-opting the smuggling networks necessitated by sanctions, for no reason
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From what I learned in school and the rhetoric surrounding the initial NA fee trade agreement. Tariffs helped create more level playing fields in those industries being heavily subsidized by the government.
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Demon Trump is also trying to keep his promise to make those that didn't vote for him suffer! Such a petty little female dog!
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Retired 1999, passed away 2021. People remembering your thoughts decades after you express them is a pretty good legacy though. economics.illinois.edu/spotlight/historic-faculty/shupp-franklin-r
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Damn, now wishing that I had passed away in 2021.
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i had an international law prof and a military history prof at U of IL that were just outstanding. Looks like they’re both emeriti now, which is well-deserved. (Paul Diehl and John Lynn)
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I remember being told of a specific example where it was Protectionism to make sure US sugar wasn't undercut. A sentence in a lecture. That's all it was.
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Did we expect any different from this 🍊🤡?
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"Tariffs are Trump's negotiating tactic."

If your opening move is, "I'm going to tax and burden my own people if you don't do what I want," I really, really want to play Texas Hold 'Em with you for real money.
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Probably why all of his casinos went belly up
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I really want to play beat the tyrannical despotic conman.
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My 8th grade teacher taught me (oddly one of those things that was iterated many times) that: A tariff is a tax on imported goods.

Why that has stuck for 25+ years? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, he’s a MAGA loser these days and gave up FB for lent so I can’t bug him about that shit. 😂
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A very 1990s view of the subject, but essentially true.
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I had a macro Econ professor say in a class once that tariffs hurt us so bad in 1930 and the late 1800’s, that no President would be dumb enough to do that again. That statement always stuck with me…. I guess now I know why. It was while W. was in office.
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Can’t fix stupid
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And we saw how well tariffs worked during the depression in 1930. It's okay, the democrats bailed us out then and will save us again this time.
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And after cleaning up the mess of GOP the Republican hardliners will state that the Democrats made mess of it and only GOP can save you.
And that’s what we’re witnessing now, I suppose….GOP to the rescue 😬
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I remember that, too!
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"Tariffs are federal taxes set by Congress, applied to goods at the border and do not involve self-imposed penalties."
Wrong !! Even MAGA Congress has done nothing on these !
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“These tariffs are the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history.”

—Mike Pence

But when do I get my $1 million DOGE rebate check from the 50% Pentagon cuts now that there is peace in Ukraine and Palestine?

www.cnbc.com/2025/02/13/defense-stocks-drop-after-trump-says-defense-spending-could-be-halved.html
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That would be never !
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Same, to me that was Prof Dudikoff.
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Nailed it!
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Well said! Spread the word.
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So well put ✨ thank you for sharing🙏

#Tariffs #TrumpTariffs #Sanctions #SelfHarmingSanctions #EconomicSanctions #MarketCrash #GlobalMarkets #Plummeted #TradeWar #FinancialCrisis #Recession
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and made even worse when that "formula" used to calculate said tariffs was made up out of whole cloth.

www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-speech-tariffs-fact-check-white-house-rcna199456
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To be unreasonably fair to tariffs, they're very good in very, very specific instances, like when you're a small country attempting to nurture a new industry, or when you're a large company intentionally attempting to put sanctions on part of your own economy to stop it from doing something like
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buying things made with slave labor in specific industries on specific goods. They are useful for mitigating externalities.

This is not what these are for. That's not what these can do.
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I think tariffs on and related to EVs is the only industry that would make sense for us…but that’s only because this country has put so many barriers in the way and refuses to invest properly.
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When the person putting those sanctions in place so he can give more tax breaks to his pals that everyone else pays for
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Apparently that was before the Eurozone and VAT.
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So you are for or against raising taxes on big corporations?
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The Economist magazine said the president had "committed the most profound, harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era. Almost everything he said—on history, economics and the technicalities of trade—was utterly deluded."
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Too bad Trump paid someone to take that class for him.
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