President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” proclamation could have provided a moment of clarity. Wednesday’s announcement was the culmination of months of false starts from his administration over whether it would really follow through on his campaign promise to impose sweeping tariffs on goods imported from across the globe. But now that he’s pulled the trigger, businesses, governments and investors are even more confused about the purpose, or the vision, or the rationale behind the gaping economic wound his colossal import taxes have blasted through global markets.
The Washington Post on Friday detailed the chaotic, last-minute process that resulted in the final tariff rates announced in the Rose Garden, and included a telling quote on how disconnected Trump is from the response to his decision:
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f--- anymore,” said a White House official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f---. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.”
One way to read the official’s characterization is that Trump is broadly indifferent to the public reception to his trade policy. I’d argue it’s just as legible as a description of what seems to have been the thought process going into the decision. Because taken at face value, it’s deeply mystifying what these new taxes are meant to do for the American economy, as consumers are forced to pay thousands of dollars more per year for goods and their retirement accounts are pummeled.
Even leaving aside the dubious formula for calculating the tariffs levied on imports from trading partners, none of the explanations offered by administration officials have really jibed with one another to suggest a coherent strategy. Several of them even straight-up contradict each other or clash with other Trump policies.
Are they meant to spur domestic manufacturing growth? That’s the tack that Vice President JD Vance and Trump trade aide Peter Navarro have taken in trying to sell the tariffs to a skeptical business community. But there’s no way that could happen overnight (or even before the conclusion of Trump’s second term), and companies aren’t going to pour millions into investing in new factories and hiring and training workers if the tariffs might suddenly be lifted at Trump’s whim or in a later Democratic administration. Additionally, many of the items that now face tariffs, especially agricultural ones like coffee and bananas, can’t be produced in the U.S. or would be extremely cost-prohibitive under current labor laws.
In that case, are they simply a stepping stone for new negotiations? There’s been mixed signals on that front. Navarro and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were very clear on Thursday when speaking with CNBC that these tariffs are here to stay, and an internal set of White House talking points indicated as much. But Trump himself contradicted them when speaking with reporters on Air Force One later that day, saying, “The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.” Several Asian countries are already testing the waters to see if they can persuade the president to back off. And to underscore how the sword swings both ways, NBC News reports that China halted an imminent deal on the sale of TikTok to secure leverage in negotiating away the massive 54% tariff on Chinese goods.
The lack of transparency about the tariffs’ goals means there’s no real way to measure what a “win” looks like.
The most “he’s playing the long game” theory is that the goal of the tariffs is to provide enough revenue to get rid of the federal income tax. Trump floated the idea on the campaign trail last year (it’s an idea that Navarro has also supported), which would take America’s economy fully back to the 19th century. But as my colleague Zeeshan Aleem explained, that would be a nightmare that would hurt middle- and low-income Americans disproportionately hard. That doesn’t necessarily disqualify it as a possible goal, but it would make it less palatable for politicians worried about backlash.
The muddled messaging from the White House is more than a communications issue, though. The lack of transparency about the tariffs’ goals means there’s no real way to measure what a “win” looks like. All that’s left is for Trump’s surrogates and allies to try to spin the major stock indexes’ impressive downturn as being, somehow, a positive sign the tariffs are “doing their job.” Conservative media figures have engaged this week in a fascinating creative storytelling exercise, grasping at every imaginable straw to explain why imposing artificially inflated costs on struggling Americans who were previously mad about inflation is actually a sign of Trump’s genius.
The chaos and incoherence around the rollout also mean that the U.S. has no obvious exit strategy that doesn’t simply involve Trump simply changing his mind at some point and revoking the tariffs. But again, it’s impossible to judge how likely Trump is to do that when there’s no ready explanation for why he wanted them in the first place. The alternative scenario is for congressional Republicans to take away the powers Trump used to declare the emergency that his tariffs are ostensibly needed to solve. And they remain hesitant to challenge his authority.
As my colleague Jim Downie noted on Friday, there’s still a chance that enough economic turmoil causes enough political pressure that the GOP has no choice but to act. Without that push from the Hill, though, the keys to the tariffs are in Trump’s pocket, and he won’t turn them off until he’s satisfied with the results. Good luck to anyone trying to figure out what that looks like before a major recession takes hold and millions of Americans suffer the consequences.